


I Spin For You

by MotelsandDiners



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: A dash of humor courtesy of Ravi, And the mention of classical music, Angst, Bad News, Blaine being charming, Blaine calls you Buttercup, Blaine has tunnel vision, Blaine is 'kind of' possesive, Blaine is Supportive, Blaine is a softie at heart for you, Blaine's having a minor identity crisis, Breakfast, But he's helpful so it's ok, Canon Divergence, Car rides, Characters denying the obvious (you and Blaine), Crying, Cute cafe, Denial of Guilt, F/M, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Flirting, Hurt/Comfort, Inner battles, Liv does not approve of you and Blaine at all, Mild Confrontation between characters, Mild smut in said shower, Minor Insecurities and Doubts, Murder Mystery, Mutual Attraction, OC best friend - Freeform, Original Character - Freeform, Ravi is a great friend, Romance, Sexual Content, Sharing a Shower, Smut, Snarky Blaine, Some Fluff, Texting, WaitressReader, You guys are unofficially official, You're already in deep you just don't know it yet, You're easily flustered, You're the reason for his tunnel vision, blaine saves the day, difficult conversations, grieving a friend, hidden themes and symbolism, self-negligence, sex with feelings, slight angst, tags added with each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-22 06:06:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11374134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotelsandDiners/pseuds/MotelsandDiners
Summary: Sometimes, he just can't help himself. It's what makes him who he is, his selfish impulses that often coincide with his carefully crafted plans. He didn't plan for this. At all. Never even crossed his mind until...hello, it was a thing that happened and became a part of his everyday life that it slid by unnoticed. Unnoticed by him, but not others. And everything seems to work against him, against...the two of you. But he'll be damned for the both of you if he doesn't do everything he can to push the currents back.





	1. Just A Drink, That's All This Is

**Author's Note:**

> DUDE! I know...I know, alright? "Why the Hell are you starting ANOTHER goddamn story when you have 3 you need to finish?!"  
> Because...Fuck you, that's why. Ugh, I hate how inspiration works against my schedule, against my agenda, but whatever. Here we go, again. On another story. I'm so sorry, loves. Really. But not sorry enough to not post this.

He’s never liked hospitals, even before he was dead he had never been a fan of them. It was sort of strange to see how little they’ve changed. He thought perhaps a new perspective would paint the walls a bearable color, steal the staleness from the air. But as he stands in the hall, leaning against a wall outside a room, he realizes something: nothing ever changes.

Because he’s still uneasy, on edge, uncomfortable. He feels as sterile as the air around him, as bland as the music tilling from the speaker overhead. The exits are still the most appealing things in the hospital to him.

And he’s tired. Tired of standing in the hall, tired of pronging the inevitable. He’s tired of being scared about turning the doorknob. Be he’s even more afraid of the act itself, to open the door. So, he bides his time, and reminisces about the weeks that lead up to here. To this hallway, to this building, to this feeling he has that isn’t going away.

A simple run, one he had time for. He figured, why not? What could go wrong? He’d drop the merchandise off, head to a bar, maybe a restaurant if he was puckish. He’d treat himself, wind down after a long day. He was all set to be selfish and indulge, all on his lonesome when he spotted you.

You in your form-fitting white collared shirt and loose black slacks with your hair piled high in a messy bun. You, wearing a contagious smile, and dawning a teasing spark in your eyes while you chatted with you table, a few loners at the bar like him. Yes, he was well prepared to see the night through without any fanfare or excitement. Was. He hopes you’ll end up serving him, while at the same time hoping you don’t.

He flickers his cerulean gaze along the top shelf: liquor. And then drops it lower: wine. His plan had been to drink until his inhibitions were nil, drink until bad ideas in his eyes sounded like the high-light of his week. But now…

He follows you in the mirror that makes up the back of the shelf for the cheaper alcohols, admires you without your awareness. The slender shoulders underneath the starch confines of your cotton button-up. Fly away hairs at the back of your neck, he’d like to know if he could tickle you with them. He takes his time when he gets to your waist, the snugness of the slacks there, the small necessity for a belt. Nothing trembles when you walk, all your parts firm and put together with vitality and strength.

He thinks he’s going to drink slow tonight. If worse comes to worse, he can request you. And it won’t seem strange because a glimpse of your name tag when you turned around. Granted, it was backwards in the mirror, but it wasn’t a puzzle for his sober mind to worry about.

He’s been at the bar long enough for two bartenders to pass him up as well as waiters. He figures that’s a good sign you’re going to serve him. Oh, that sends blood somewhere he doesn’t need right now. He shifts in his seat, gazes at you in the mirror again, and narrows his eyes.

Your shoulders seem tight, higher, elbows close to your sides. You’re uncomfortable. Why? The mirror isn’t tall enough to offer view of the entire restaurant, not anything lower than the waists of people. He can’t see anyone at tables.

So, he peeks over his shoulder at where he judges you are, and his eyes darken.

You’re standing at the edge of a table, one man seated at it. His cheeks are a ruddy red, his eyes bleary. The man is clearly drunk, his manners, morals, common sense sopped wet with alcohol because in one hand he waves a twenty at you. Your tip apparently, but he doesn’t hand it over.

Blaine can’t hear what he says to you, but it’s enough for you to inch back a step and shake your head weakly, which doesn’t go well. The drunken man scowls, crumples the twenty in his fist and makes ready to say something. But that’s about the moment Blaine decides he’s seen enough.

“Hey,” he calls, forcing excitement as he legs it toward that table, a smile on his face. He waves at you, “Y/N, I had no idea you worked here. How long’s it been?”

The relief on your face is like Christmas for him, but you cover it up with faux surprise, dampened joy at seeing a ‘familiar face’. “God, since senior year of college. How are you?”

The drunken man watches the exchange with narrowed lids and flat lips, impatient. Whatever he wants from you is no match for his short patience because he huffs and slides out of his seat, movements heavy in his inebriated state.

Whoever this is that just saved your ass carries on the conversation, side-eyeing that man. “Great. Things have been lining up like destiny. What about you, how’s Seattle treating you?” He asks in implication, like you haven’t always been in Seattle, like this is just a temporary situation.

But you realize, he isn’t asking about Seattle, he’s asking about tonight, about this restaurant, about that man, and you can’t fight the tiny smile that pulls your lips. “Better than Brooklyn, worse than Los Angeles.”

He smiles, laughing lines appearing on the edges of his mouth. “Is that review for Seattle on Yelp? Because you might want to consider switching the cities in there.” That smile turns into a smirk when your smile turns bashful, clearly picking up on the change in tone. The differing motive in his voice.

He lets you try to fight off your grin, and extends his hand. “Blaine Debeers.” When you shake his hand, he half considers doing something dumb and cliché, and catches himself because he’s not drunk or cliché.

“Y/N L/N.” you introduce yourself, that smile persisting against your discretion. “I owe you a thank you-“ you release his hand, pop your gaze up like you’re thinking, like thoughts float in mid-air, and then continue. “I definitely owe you a free drink.” You say, glancing towards the door of the restaurant in emphasis, indicating the mess with that drunken man he helped you avoid.

He slips his hands into his pants pockets, black jeans fitted snug but not tight, and nods softly with an equally soft smile to match. “I think I’ll wait,” he tells you, sharp blue eyes seeming to glow in the gentle light overhead. He watches your expression change to one of confusion, and elaborates. “Until you can have that drink with me.”

Dear, God. And to think, you were cursing this job just yesterday, sure it wasn’t worth the trouble or stress.

“Technically, I was supposed to be off half an hour ago.” You seemingly ponder aloud, and if it’s possible that smirk he gives you gets a little wider, a little more smug, and damn if that doesn’t make you finish your sentence with zeal, you don’t know what does. “So, you don’t have to wait at all.”

You brush past him towards the bar where you saw him sat, and he chuckles at you, then clicks his tongue.

“Drinking on the job. That’s usually frowned upon, you know?”

You roll your eyes, quirk an eyebrow, all of which he sees because he’s watching you in the bar mirror. “Usually? You don’t seem the type to cling to usual circumstances.”

_Oh, you have no idea._ He thinks, but just chuckles again, ducking his head with it. “I’m not the type to cling to anything. Sucks the joy out of living.” He slides back onto his stool, folds his arms over the bar and peers down the few inches of height difference between the two of you. The floor must dip behind the bar.

You tip your chin at him, a challenge in the smile you send him and place a scotch in front of him on a napkin. “That right?” you pour a generous amount of Royal Brackla into his glass, place the bottle off to the side, and his fingers curl around his glass out of reflex. But he’s locked in on you.

You put your elbow on the bar, rest your jaw on the heel of your palm and talk, low and quiet so he has to strain to listen. So, he’s sure to lean in a little, maybe have to watch your lips to understand better. “I’m curious, then. How do you get your kicks out of life?” Your words are small, warm, carried on smoke and cherry syrup your tone is so double-edged.

But he’ll be damned if he allows a woman to influence him visually. He won’t give up his bearings. He holds your gaze, mindful of the fire creating the smoke in your eyes, and slowly takes a sip of his scotch. You watch his lips part around the rim of his glass, light catching on the amber liquid, on the crystal chips in the glass, watch his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows.

You don’t even try to pretend you aren’t looking at him like he’s a meal. And he doesn’t call you out for it, if anything, he seems to appreciate it, welcome it.

Blaine lays his glass down, squints his eyes with a snarky smile and shrugs a shoulder. “You’ll get your answer when you have a drink.”

You like this game. Like it so much you don’t care who wins.

That’s your first mistake.

His first mistake is thinking that he can end this game whenever he wants. Thinking he’ll want to end it.

He finds out too late he doesn’t want the game to end. He wants this. Wants it enough…


	2. Yeah, I Don't Have You On My Calendar For Today?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All play and no work would be a close evaluation of his work ethic over the weekend. Except, he hasn't played at all. Dreamed of it, tried to plan it. But alas, there has been no merry-making for three long days. Fortunately, you catch a lucky break for the both of you. Hallelujah.

That want turns into need before he has any idea there’s a difference between them.  A few days pass, business as usual, as it goes. But little things creep in, such as your name in his phone, your e-mail address in his inbox, plans to meet inked in on his calendar. Thoughts of you during work, such as the blush that painted your cheeks after a couple glasses of scotch. The smoothness of your laugh, kept quiet out of manners, the way the lack of volume made it sound as calming as a spring brook. He could’ve listened to you laugh all night, listened to you laugh the weekend away.

But, duty calls. As it literally had that night before he had the chance to take you home. And it kept getting in the way, and if it wasn’t his job it was yours. The last text you sent him was half an hour ago telling him you had to get back to work.

Work. At that restaurant where that drunken brute…

He picks up his phone, hovers over the call button…hovers…and chickens out. Instead, he sends you a text.

_Me: Hey, if that asshole from Friday shows up…or any jackass- tell me._

He lays his phone face-down, shifts around papers on his desk, orders for caskets, advertisement opportunities, etc. Trying to pretend he intends to work today, to do something productive instead of finagle his calendar, his business life, his illegal activities to make time for you. He hasn’t been very successful.

His phone vibrates and he picks it up, a smile worming its way over his lips and he hasn’t even read your reply yet.

_Y/N: Why? You going to swoop in and save me, Superman?_

Blaine chuckles, begins typing a response but stops when he hears the front door open. He frowns, listens for the footsteps to quit, to halt in the foyer to wait for assistance. But they don’t, they head right for him and he sighs.

He’d know those foot-falls anywhere. This should be good.          

He continues texting, knowing it’ll irritate her, how little attention he’s willing to give her.

The curtain is yanked back, thick velvet swishing and she doesn’t wait for a response before she’s marching in. “Blaine-“ she begins, but abruptly shuts her mouth when he holds up his index finger at her, gaze locked on his phone.

Blaine smiles, thumbs tapping away. Takes a second to think about the rest of his response even though he knows exactly what he wants to say. He holds his finger again when she opens her mouth to speak, and he can practically feel the anger rolling off her. “And…send.” He declares with a dramatic widening of his eyes.

He looks up finally, leans back in his chair, hands dangling over the arm rests. “So…how’ve you been?”

Liv chews the inside of her cheek, eyes narrowed. “Charlie Gray.” She says and folds her arms.

Blaine meets her gaze coolly, unperturbed, waits for her to continue. But when she glares harder, pops her eyebrows up, a universal way to say _Well?_ without opening your mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, is it my turn?”

 He tucks his hands against his sides, puckers his mouth, brow creasing as he tips his head towards the ceiling. “Ambrose Kingston.”

Liv squints at him, drops her hands to her hips, clearly not impressed.

He shrugs, mouth parted as he prepares to smile. “Are we not having a contest to see who can come up with coolest name?” If she were alive, Blaine is sure this is the part where she’d flush in anger. He points at himself. “Pretty sure I won. Just saying.”

“The brain I just ate-“

“Charlie or Ambrose?” Everyone needs a hobby, right? His might be pissing her off.

“You were the last person Charlie saw before she died.”

Huh. “That’s strange considering I have no idea who the hell she is.” Blaine dimples a cheek in a sarcastic smile, something bordering sympathetic but not quite there. “More importantly, unless you _saw_ me kill her, you’re wasting your time here.”

And now he picks up a paper with real interest, anything to appear like he cares less than not at all. Liv huffs, flops her arms at her sides and is no doubt hitting him with that disbelieving/judging look she always does. Blaine wouldn’t be surprised if she criticized the way he says hello, or flips light switches, turns the tap on and off.

“You could at least-“ She starts.

“Nope.” He interrupts, skimming the page in front of him.

“But-“

“Nooo.” Blaine re-reads the order on the paper, eyebrows raised, and then taps the sheet, glancing up at Liv. “Mauve silk interior, sheet music pattern of Bohemian Rhapsody etched into lid of coffin.” He drums his fingers on the edge of his desk, gloats in her state of irritation. “What’s the point?” he asks, waving his hand at the casket order. “It’s going to be too dark in that coffin to see the pattern.”

Liv throws her hands up with a shake of her head, upper lip prepared to curl. “You’re deplorable.” She tells him, tone dripping with venom, but it rolls off him like water on a duck’s back.

She stomps out, shoulders tight, and he calls after her, voice warm and jovial. “Okay, take care Snow White! Good to see you!”

She slams the door with enough force to have the chandelier in the floor trembling, pictures jolting on the walls. Blaine sighs, rubs at his temples. He can feel a headache coming on.

His cellphone vibrates on the desk, and he snatches it up.

_Me: Absolutely. I’ll come running- well. In a manner of speaking: break some traffic laws for you._

_Y/N: So good to know chivalry isn’t dead._

_Me: I’m the last of dying breed unfortunately. But seriously, give me a holler if Friday night happens again._

Your response happens while the phone is still in his hand, and he won’t lie about the way his chest fills with air at how eager you seem to be. How much you appear to want to talk to him.

_Y/N: I’m sorry, are you asking me to tell if you if a handsome, charming stranger convinces me to drink with him on my shift…or were you referring to something else?_

_Me: I’m going to call you._

_Y/N: What?_

_Me: I. Am. Going. To. Call you._

_Y/N: I can read -_-_

Blaine smirks, doesn’t give this a second thought before he’s ringing you. He realizes you were probably in the middle of texting him back, but he doesn’t care. Spontaneity is something that often gets him into trouble, or leads him to having the time of his life. It’s like flipping a coin.

You pick up surprisingly quick. “Blaine!” you scold him, but he can hear the smile in your voice.

“Hey, _you_ answered.” He shoots back, closes his eyes and visualizes what you might look like right now. Your expressions when you talk.

“Why did you call me, anyway?”

He grins, leans back in his chair, rocks a little in it. “Because I wanted to talk to you.” He says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

There’s a pause on your end, but he can the noise of the restaurant, the chatter and clatter of silverware die down. And then you’re back, voice soft and patient, sweet, but strong with life. Like sunshine, soft and beautiful but so steadfast.

“All right then, mister. Talk.” You order into the receiver, and he can imagine you leaning back against the wall of some deserted hallway, a coy smile on your lips, head dipped for minor privacy.

He chuckles, nods even though you can’t see him. And he talks. Tells you about his day, about the strange things people request for caskets, about the strange people that place the strange requests. Asks your advice about changing the wallpaper because customers have complained that the current color is off-putting, depressing.

And then he slows down, slows down to a stop and lets the mood settle, lets his mind shift. And when you finally ask if he’s still there, he answers.

And he continues talking, but now he tells you about every instance he’s thought of you today, how many times he’s thought of something you’d find funny, how much rearranging he’s done for next week to create a spot for you. Tells you that every time he thinks of scotch he thinks of you and how quickly those two glasses at the restaurant went straight to your head.

And you smile through all of it, cheeks ablaze with a blush, and fan at yourself with your hand. When he falls silent, all you can do is laugh shakily. “I’m never answering a phone call from you again.”

“Why not?” The smirk is so strong you can see it in your mind and you need to lean a little heavier on the wall behind you, the wood paneling cool through your shirt. “Am I getting you all flustered?” The question is a tease because he clearly knows he’s talked you into a puddle of goo.

“Shut up!” you laugh, shaking your head. At that moment, the supervisor for the day pokes his head around the corner, sees you and waves at you. His quick way of saying see ya, Y/N. You’re cut for the day.

“Wish I could be there to see it.” He sighs, mournful about it, and now you smirk.

“You can.” You tell him, and walk to the office to grab your bag. “I just got cut for the day.”

There’s a pregnant pause on his end, and you just listen to him breathe for a while. And then you hear him moving around, things shuffling in the background.

He all but purrs into the phone. “I’ll be there in ten.”

He’s there in eight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* I am really trying to pace myself for this story...let me tell you: I'm doing absolute shit at it lol.


	3. Like Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is he rushing things? Admitting yes would imply there's something to rush. But saying no raises the question: Why pick you up, take you to your apartment, only to have to bring you back to work the next day? That's something. It is. But he won't admit it. His hind-sight is 20/20. His foresight however...

You hang near the door, peering through the murky, tinted glass into the sky overhead. The overcast clouds of dark grey, listen to the quiet rumble of thunder, and try not to glance at your watch too much. Every second feels like a month you’re so excited, so thrilled to be seeing him again.

You don’t know what kind of car he drives, but you feel it’ll be obvious when he shows up. You open your messages to check and see if he’s texted you, but nothing new is in messages log. At least he isn’t doing something stupid like texting and driving. You idly wonder if he’s breaking any of those traffic laws he mentioned.

The thought makes you smile a bit. Because he seems the type to do things like that; unnecessary, risky things, flashy escapades, seems the type to live foolishly. Proving people wrong sounds like an appropriate hobby for a man like Blaine. For instance, one look at him and you had him pegged as an arrogant business man on his day off. The suit jacket alone could have cost you three weeks checks, and the shoes. Genuine Calvin Kleins, shiny enough that you could have been blinded from light glinting off the polish.

But he wasn’t some pomp business man. He owned a funeral home, quaint, unimpressive, simple. So you had to guess that he found most his wardrobe on sale somewhere, perhaps thrifting. You don’t know me. That’s the kind of air that surrounds him.

If you knew him from birth, spent every day with him, every second of every day, you still wouldn’t know him. An enigma with no explanation, a layered mystery that you couldn’t wait to delve into. Question marks surround him like flies to honey, questions with which you hunger for the answers.

There’s something decidedly different about him compared to all the other men of your past. He eclipsed them easily, one evening with Blaine Debeers had cast a shadow over those months you spent entertaining those flings, trying to create a life with a Shaun here, a Braden here, once even a Stefan. All of it glares with obvious failure, destined failure.

But this, this is a separate experience, a very unknown darkness that you’re probing into. You have no idea how any of this will play out. You had fooled yourself way back when, with those temporary distractions that wiped away the monotony of life for a few months with promises of white picket fences and red shutters on windows, perfectly manicured lawns.

You can’t conjure up any of that with Blaine, it seems almost impossible. From the get-go you could place those Shauns, and Bradens into a picture of morning papers and white-collared shirts, pancakes and coffee, sleepy morning smiles. But you can’t do that here.

It’s easier to see him in the moonlight, pale light illuminating a dark room, rumpled sheets. Quiet, silent mornings, empty bed. A kiss perhaps on the cheek or neck before the door closes. A promise for the night, but never the day. Only certain hours, and never days on end. An arrangement that stands but doesn’t fortify.

That’s how can you see him slotted into your life. Sounds lonely, but really, it sounds noir, sounds riskier and livelier than you’ve ever done in your short life. At very least, he’s something you won’t regret because he’s a nice little surprise in your doldrum life. You aren’t trying for that white picket fence anymore, there are no hopes to crush, no expectations to fail.

He’s possibility, full and free, and wild and you ache for it desperately. He’s more than you’re prepared for and it doesn’t even scare you, in fact, you can’t seem to open the door fast enough for him.

“A smile like that, you’ve got to be thinking about somebody.”

You snap your head up, eyes wide in shock.

Blaine leans against the doorjamb, holding the glass door open with his body. He regards you with a Cheshire grin and havoc in his eyes. “Stressing the “somebody” here, of course.” Smugness suits him as well as navy blue, or scotch in a jazz bar. A perfect fit.

You hadn’t even heard him open the door, didn’t see him roll up in his car you were so busy thinking, reminiscing. You peek outside, eye the Mazda pulled up to the curb; matte black. He lets you ogle and stare while you find your tongue, in no hurry to skip conversation.

“Does everything you say sound like a cheap pick-up line?”

He laughs, inclines his head toward the entrance, and you wordlessly oblige his silent request, brushing past him. The door swings shut, hardly a second between the sound and the warmth that radiates when he walks next to you, arms brushing.

But-

He stops you underneath the awning with a gentle hand on your elbow. You turn your head in question but he’s not looking at you. A second later, he has an umbrella over your head, and you quirk an eyebrow. It’s not even raining.

“Give it a second,” he says, staring out into the sidewalk, road, with expectation. You wait, ready to be smug in case it doesn’t rain, which it doesn’t appear to be doing when all of a sudden, it pours. Pours like someone is on the roof with bathtubs full of water, and it’s loud, roaring on the pavement.

“I’m torn between impressed and irritated.” You say over the rain, and he grins lop-sidedly, flourishes a hand out in front of him and bends at the waist a little. He can afford to with your height.

“After you,” he implores, offering his arm which you take with a roll of your eyes. Dramatic, add that to the list of things that’s refreshing about him.

He’s a true gentleman about keeping you out of the rain, even sacrificing the umbrella for a few seconds while you duck into the car- after he opened it for you, Je. Sus. – getting drenched in the process. He rushes around to his side of the car, disappearing around the back and you glance in the rearview for him, getting a nice view of his waist/lower stomach, fabric rumpled and wrinkled pleasingly in all the right ways.

Watching him dip and slip into the car, long lanky legs and slender arms, head dipped down, hair dripping with rain, collar dark with water…damn, you’re going to need all the air conditioning this car can offer.

The scent of rain and humid asphalt wavers in the air of the cabin until he closes his door, hushing the torrents of water and the background noise of the city. He stretches up and long to put the umbrella in the backseat, most likely intentionally giving you a teasing glimpse of fabric stretched to capacity, cords in his neck popping, bursting your personal space bubble with the aroma of his cologne.

But he plays off as innocent, and settles in his seat as if he didn’t toss sparks onto tinder. Nope, instead, he starts the car, toggles the volume on the radio he never turns off, and swivels his head to talk to you.

“You work tomorrow?”

Oh, are we chit-chatting about work now?

“I suppose.” Blaine shrugs, smirks when your expression pops like a balloon.

Shit, guess you said that out loud.

He chuckles. “No, I’m asking because I want to know how much time I have.” He reaches past you into the glove box while you figure out what hell he means, and grabs a handful of napkins.

“Y-yeah-“

He deflates a fraction, but recovers quick. Fast enough you wonder if you saw what you saw. “What time?”

“What is this: Twenty Questions?” you interrupt with a sideways smile, and you catch a glimpse of that knee-wobbling smirk as he dries his face with a napkin. Damn it, why do feel like you’re losing a game you never agreed to playing? Is there fine print somewhere you forgot to read?

“Not with the way you’re playing,” Blaine responds, blasé and indifferent. The way you imagine he’s handled life since day one. Like he doesn’t care, as if there aren’t consequences to anything. He balls up the napkin and drops it into the center console, reaching for his seat-belt while he does. “Just answer the question, buttercup.”

Pet-names already, huh? It’s enough to throw you off and answer. “Noon.”

Your reply seems to please him because his eyes brighten, sparks in them akin to diamonds under light. He has plans, that much is apparent, but what they are remains to be seen. But you don’t want to know, not knowing is some brand of fun you’ve never tried.

Nothing ever surprised with your past boyfriends, it was all so bland and predictable. Nothing was ever new. Everything was fitted into its appointed slot, at its appointed time with its usual nature of blah, and boring, and here I am right where I’m supposed to be.

“You look like you’re having a thought.” Blaine remarks lightly, glancing at you in his peripherals, those sharp eyes curious.

You shrug. “I am.”

He hums, a contemplative note, laden with interest and anticipation. “You want to share with the class?” 

You beam at him, taking in- as fast you can -his profile of a sharp jaw and chin, tanned to perfection, smooth. The gentle slope of his Adam’s apple you very much want to kiss and run your tongue over. The slender wrists, veiny hands on the steering wheel, the perfect ratio of leg-length and waist-width, and feel yourself drool a little.

“Nnnope.” You say, popping the p.

Blaine looks at you, takes in your cheeky expression…takes in the faint blush _on_ your cheeks as well as the heat in your eyes, and licks a smirk off his lips. There is such a thing as ‘too much’.

“That’s alright.” He says, pushing the understanding into his tone, abating any ‘worries’ you may have about him being offended. And then shoves it all right over with his next words, dripping with cockiness and flirtation. “I have a feeling I know what it’s about.”

“Ha! I bet. Do tell.” You prompt with a challenging raise of your eyebrows.

He winks at you. “No.”

You scoff and shake your head, victory in the action, and Blaine catches it. Of course he does, he’s running this show. You just don’t know it yet.

“Anyway, I gotta apologize cuz there’s just no classy way to ask this,” he pauses, squints out the windshield at the heavy rain while you wait with baited breath for him to finish his sentence. “Where do you live?”

You fold your arms, cough to cover a tiny laugh when his eyes narrow, lips purse, and you rattle off your address through giggles.

“Oh- damn. I have to turn around.” He mutters to himself, looking this way and that, and you snort a laugh,

“Why the hell were you driving anywhere if you didn’t know where I live?”

“Can it, sister. I’m not just going to sit in a car parked next to a sidewalk in the pouring rain. This isn’t a break-up scene in a Nicholas Sparks movie.”

“Oh my God.” You laugh, hand over your mouth to hold in all squeaks and giggles. Blaine grins with your laughter, feeling quite accomplished. He enjoys your laugh, makes him smile, even if he doesn’t feel like it. It’s unfightable, like gravity.

You laugh, he smiles.

He wonders, though. What you do when he laughs. Do you do anything? Or does he not have an effect on you?

He laughs…and you what? Do you smile?

If he smiles, does your heart race?

He doubts it.

“Now who’s having a thought?” You shoot at him, eyeing the pensive crease in his brow and he blinks a few times to get out of his stupor.

“Guess it was my turn.” Blaine shrugs, flashing you a smile that’s high on ambiguity. No mirth or tease in it, no snarkiness, or fire in his eyes.

You frown lightly, tap your fingers on your thighs as he works himself out of whatever funk he fell into. He does, inevitably. Just not in a way you expect.

“What’s that?” he asks suddenly, and you tilt your gaze over at him. Find him pointing at your bag, more importantly, the thing sticking out of your bag.

“Is that…” he glances down at it, shoots his eyes back to the road. “Is that a bottle of wine?” He looks over at you, a stop sign giving him the opportunity to raise his eyebrows, quirk his lips at the corners.

“Sure is,” you say and lay your hand over the neck of the bottle. “I remember you saying you’re more a fan of wine than scotch…” you trail off, leave the comment there to do with what he will.

And for a minute, he flattens his lips as he chews a cheek, blinks at the windshield in a fashion you can’t decipher, something in his light blues you can’t put a finger on. But, sure as the sun shines every morning, he drags himself out of whatever it is that’s tying up his charm in knots and gives you a bright look.

“Did you steal a sixty dollar bottle of wine for me? Because if so, I might just cry.” Eyebrows tilted upwards in melodrama, sincerity of ridiculous nature in his eyes. He could sell paint to a color-blind person.

“Noo. I bought it. Figured we could have a drink when I wasn’t working.”

He pouts half-heartedly. “You’re so boring. Live a little, Y/N.”

_Live a little._ Coming from a man that looks and acts as if he’s lived a million lives in the span of a week.

Live a little.

You smile at him, hopeful. “Convince me.”

He flickers his gaze to you. Clocks in on something in your eyes he’s sure you don’t even know is there. A fire struggling to ignite, embers burning low waiting for a gull, a gust of blustery wind to bring it to life. He lingers, car rolling to a stop, eyes boring into yours.

“I will.” He promises, completely serious, nothing light or humorous about him.

And it’s at that moment he realizes something works for you like your laugh works for him.

You laugh, he smiles.

He makes promises, you believe him.

He’s going to do his damndest to keep them.

 

 

The walk up to your apartment is nerve wracking, and not for a bad reason. The opposite actually. He’s practically on your heels the whole way up, half a second behind you, matching your pace down to fine print. And his eyes…you can feel them anywhere they fall, they burn and tantalize like fire licking at ice. His gaze has presence, has weight, his eyes feel like hands in the way they linger and rake with such solid want, your bones practically melt with it.

But he doesn’t touch you, not physically. Though he kisses the possibility of it when you unlock your lock, a few inches behind you, breath ghosting your neck, heat oozing out of him in roiling pulses with his cologne and it makes you dizzy. You can’t get the door open quick enough, and when you do, you rush into your air-conditioned apartment, cool air bursting along your fevered skin like a heavenly balm.

You let him shut the door as you patter into the kitchen to put the wine on the counter, to gather your breath, try to rein in your pulse. You hear the front door click shut, and pick up the bottle to instead put it into a cabinet, just so when he walks into the kitchen it’ll look like you’re doing something instead of-

“Running away from me?” His voice startles you from the entrance of the room though it’s no louder than a murmur, and you whirl with a frightened squeak. There’s no smirk, no teasing lilt to his voice, no playfulness in the way he stands, carefree as it is with his hands in his pockets.

Your lips move before you even think of what to say. “You’re in my house. Little late to be running, isn’t it?”

Blaine starts towards you, deep blue eyes zeroed in on with obvious intent, filing away ever minute twitch, every pull of breath that leaves you, the dusting of pink on your cheekbones, your red lips, slightly swollen because you’ve unknowingly been biting them. You watch him watch you, a snow white rabbit cornered and trapped as a wolf approaches with languid pride.

He rounds the counter, hand on the corner, intentionally blocking the way he came, and he nods, nice and slow, something sharp and jagged in his gaze. “Tragically late.” And then he’s there, right in front of you, hardly an inch of space to spare between the two of you, chests and stomachs brushing on every inhale.

A hand skims up your side, leaving wildfire in its wake, fingertips igniting squalls of flame when they pause. Trickles up, brushing the racing beat of your pulse in your neck, up, to the bun you have loosely secured in a hair tie. All this time, he’s been watching the advance of his hand, locked on the substance, the journey, riveted. And you’ve been heroically patient as you burn to a crisp from the inside out.

Down your hair tumbles in wavy, wild locks, beautiful and elegant in its freedom. Mermaids would have been jealous.

Now, he looks at you, for the first time, as his hand weaves its way to the back of your neck through the thick tendrils of your hair. Your mind takes a trip across the globe at the desire, the stripped bare carnality in his blown pupils, the hunger that’s darkened the thin rings of his irises to the shade of sapphires.

Blaine doesn’t ask, there’s no reason to. Formalities were thrown away at the door.

A blink, and he has your mouth crushed to his in a toe-curling, spine tingling, mind numbing kiss. It’s hot, and mean, and completely ravenous, and you don’t mind one bit. It burns through every experience you’ve ever had, casts a sky-high shadow your exes have no hope of escaping from. You have to admit, with bold truth and shy innocence that every kiss you’ve ever had doesn’t count. None of them were real.

Because, this- This right here: with his hand fisted in your hair, arm wound around your waist like thick rope, bruising lips and capricious teeth, small growls that break out of him, his overpowering cologne that works like an aphrodisiac soaked into your skin, the rush of your pulse- _this_ is a kiss.

You grapple to get closer, fingers finding the lapels of his suit jacket, holding him firm, anchoring him to you with a white-knuckled grip. He notices the tiny pull, the tug, and then you fisting the material. You might be the death of him, the final death of him. Your perfume, the desperate way you cling to him, the demure air that falls about you when he flirts. The little moans and whimpers that trickle out between your lips to kiss his teeth.

All of it drives him insane. You break away when he pushes his hips into yours, harsh and precise, and you thunk your head back on the cabinet behind you, throat displayed long. Blaine groans absently, leans forward to suck stinging kisses into your neck, breath humid and heavy, his hips keeping a steady roll that has friction mounting, a pulse starting low and strong.

“Blaine. Bedroom?” you manage to whisper out on a waver, his tongue tracing patterns up to your jaw. You _feel_ him smile against your skin.

“I’m fine right where I am,” he purrs, his hands skating down to the button on your slacks. He pops his head up to grin at you, self-satisfied, lecherous, lust leaking out of him…you groan at him. He seems to understand it isn’t a groan of frustration, and unzips you. About the time he does, you grab his face, hands cupping his jaw and kiss him like your life depends on it.

 You pause just a second to say, “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? Not pacing myself at all. Sorry..? Not sorry. At all. Gotta say, I'm having fun writing Blaine. Anyway, off I go. *Salutes*


	4. Rose Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's aware, vaguely. But every moment he spends with you it's becoming undeniable: you change him. There's a distinct difference between who he is when he's at Shady Plots and when he's with you. You're like turpentine, bleeding away, scraping clean all these layers of paint he's put on himself until he's a blank canvas. Now, if only you could take the damn paint palette away from him he'd have no regrets.

He wakes, long before you do, with sunlight painting streaks of gold onto your carpet, inching toward the corners and edge of the bed. Usually, when he wakes up in some bed that isn’t his own he’s confused, discombobulated, surroundings he doesn’t recognize, a blurry mess of memory as a timestamp. But not today, he’s fully aware of whose bed he’s in, conscious of the walls and floors that aren’t his.

And typically this is the moment that he slips away, weaves his way through hallways and rooms he can’t remember- like smoke looking for an exit. Typically. But he’s beginning to realize that there’s something about you that demands a change of face and attitude in him. Not outright, not at your request.

No, it’s something that just happens without his volition. Because-

He doesn’t want to slip away in the early hours of the morning like some nocturnal animal forced out of his den. Doesn’t want you to wake up to an empty bed. Empty bed, head full of questions. He can’t stand the thought of you waking up with expectations of him being here, can’t stomach the thought of dashing whatever hopes you may have. The look on your face: A sleepy smile, heavy on memories of the night before, a reaching hand, searching for him on the opposite side of the bed only to find cold wrinkled sheets.

Nope. Can’t do it.

He turns his head on the pillow, half the sound from Seattle getting drowned out in the feathery case under his ear. You’re still asleep, deep in. Laid on your stomach, sheet laying over your lower back, hair a wild, wavy mess, slow even breathes tumbling through your mouth. He watches your shoulders rise with each breath, upper back raise in response, shadows falling and rippling over your skin, kissed with faint sunlight from reflections and glares off various things.

Blaine couldn’t have snuck out if he wanted. No way possible.

This isn’t like his one-night stands, or friends with benefits. He can’t put a finger on what it is, only what it isn’t. He doesn’t know what that means, could mean anything. Could mean nothing at all. He’s sure he’ll learn more about what this is when he ends up ruining it. Hindsight.

For now, he’ll enjoy this, whatever it is.

He swipes a generous amount of hair over your shoulder, contemplates waking you, but decides against when you settle a little deeper into sleep, face lax. Instead, he gets up, inches his way out from under the sheets, and plants his feet on the floor, gaze locked over his shoulder to make sure he’s being careful.

You turn your head the opposite way, slide your arms up underneath the pillow, shift in your sleep, and Blaine watches you for a moment, a laziness creeping into his caution. Not his caution about waking you, caution about another matter entirely.

Blaine sweeps the floor for his boxer briefs, and when he can’t find them, he gathers up his jeans and shimmies those on, mindful of how much noise he’s making. But he worries pointlessly, you’re so drowned in dreams almost nothing will make you surface.

He tip-toes to the door, smiles at the clothes littering the floor, the trail he’s sure to find leading back to the kitchen. He pauses in the doorway, gauges your level of sleep, and reckons it’s safe enough for him to conjure up something nice.

You have what he needs easily at hand. Wine cork popped, glasses filled, laid aside while he rummages around for the next part of this. He doesn’t know why he’s in your kitchen in the wee hours of the day, chopping away at fruit like he belongs in your kitchen in the early morning, but he does it. Tries to force the sense of macabre that hangs onto him while he whistles quietly some tune whose origin he can’t remember. He heard it on the radio yesterday while driving here, and it felt like it fit into the small space of the car, weaseled its way into whatever feelings were swirling around in the air-conditioning.

Now it’s in his brain with mellow hooks, and soft drama and settles into this situation like a puzzle piece perfectly fitted. Only, he’s the puzzle piece that doesn’t fit in here, in your apartment, in a second of your day, in your life. But here he is.

He lays the knife in the sink, sweeps rinds into the trashcan under the counter, nestles the bowl into the crook of his arm, gathers up the glasses and starts back towards your room. Every step feels like he’s shattering glass underneath his feet. What lies beyond the sheet glass is unknown to him, even more so with all the spidery cracks of stark white. And he’s no thoughts about it, no qualms about the outcome.

It’s pushed far from his mind when he emerges back into the low-light of your room, orange-yellow sun bathing the room in calm tones, something sensual and subtle but with enough meaning to make him pause a moment to file it all away. Files away the crumpled sheets, the carelessly shed clothes, the looseness of your limbs, the way a leg peeks out from under the white bed covering, the sereneness of the silence.

And then he pads forward, eyes riveted on you, on your slightly arched back, the thin layer of muscle hiding underneath perfectly smooth skin he spent unknown amounts of time running his hands over, his lips.

His morning surprise he places on the bedside table, and crawls back in, laying sideways, propped up on a forearm. You’re dreaming- if the smile on your lips is anything to go by, he hopes it’s about him. And if it’s not, maybe he can worm his way in.

He leans towards you, letting his head fall with gravity, lays a hand on your lower back, skin cool from the AC, and watches goosebumps flash from how warm his hand is. Drags it up, spine nestled between the heel of his palm softly and you inhale a breath, eyebrows twitching. He smirks, continues up, runs his palm over your shoulder blades, fingers trickling over the drop of bones and you scrunch your nose a bit.

When he threads his hand through the hair across the back of your neck is when you wake with a full breath, thrown back into reality with the aid of his fingers rubbing soothing circles into the curve of your skull.

“You could sleep through a world war.” He remarks quietly, letting the bleariness bleed from your eyes as you blink your way up to the searing blues staring down at you. “Or at least breakfast.” Runs that hand up, ribbons of your hair gathered between his fingers as his thumb caresses your temple.

You hum, eyelids drooping. “What time is it?” You mumble, working your limbs into wakefulness.

“Early.” Is his simple answer, soulful blues ghosting your body as you struggle through your sleepy grog, cards his fingers through your hair, trails them down your back with feather-light strokes, slightly ticklish.

You roll onto your side, matching his pose, uncaring about the bareness of your chest and peer up at him, his mussed candy blond hair sticking up in odd directions. And then you flit your gaze along his collar bone, the junction of his neck and shoulders: the bite marks there, the faint bruises from the sweetest hickeys you’ve ever given anyone. You feel quite proud, like you’ve signed your name on a priceless work of art, stamped your name on a national monument. Y/N was here.

“You keep looking at me like that we won’t get to the surprise I magicked up for you.”

You raise your eyebrows, disregarding the fact that Blaine called you out for ogling him. “Surprise?”

A boyish grin spreads his lips, dazzling whites on display and he twists on the bed, muscles in his chest and stomach popping out to say hello. Your heart sighs at you. At least until you realize-

“Why are you wearing pants?”

He turns back around, lays a bowl down between the two of you, wide and deep, and gives you a mockingly offended look. “I go out of my way do something thoughtful and, dare I say it- sweet. And the only thing you notice is that I’m wearing pants?” He reaches into the bowl, a large slice of cantaloupe in his fingers and pops it into his mouth. “Get your priorities in order, woman.”

You toss your head back with a laugh, his sass and snark and wit is like cold water on a hot day. He’s still chewing when your laughter abates, already reaching into the bowl for another wedge of fruit. Strawberry.

You smile warmly, cock your head at an angle and talk without tact. “Would it be dangerous to get used to this?”

Ever with the wit: “What? Me eating fruit in your bed half-naked? I mean, I suppose I can come over whenever you have melon on hand- “

You shove a quarter of pineapple into his mouth with a rueful smirk, light scolding in your eyes, and he merely smiles in response, puckers his lips against your fingers. You didn’t think he’d still be here this morning. You figured he would’ve snuck out the first chance he got. But here is, proving you wrong.

You snag a piece of fruit for yourself, think idly while you chew and he speaks while you’re occupied.

“Definitely dangerous,” he sighs, dragging his tongue over his bottom lip, stare pinned to the bedroom door with a tightness in his jaw, and you try to keep the disappointment on a low boil. Disappointed. Why are you disappointed? Isn’t that the very thing you decided you wouldn’t be?

“I don’t think I could ever get used to this,” he seems to muse out loud, gaze distant, and you swallow thickly, the sweetness of the fruit doing little for the bitter tang of self-scolding creeping up on you. Blaine rolls his tongue around his mouth, chasing the flavor of pineapple, sneaks a glance at you, recognizes a folly in his words because you’re subdued, shades dimmer than you were minutes ago, regardless of the vibrant sunlight cascading over you.

He’ll have to fix that. Right now.

He stretches his arm over, cradles a glass in his palm and then offers it to you with the words, “So, Y/N, think you can convince me?”

You eye the glass in mild suspicion, confusion. “What?” you take the wine from him, caught off guard.

Blaine looks pleased with your uncertainty, happy to be the guiding light towards knowledge. “I said I don’t think I could ever get used to this.” He has his own glass of wine in hand, picks up another square of melon. “Convince me otherwise, Y/N.”

_Live a little, Y/N._

_Convince me._

_I will._

You smile, his heart races, and you make him a promise. “I will.”

He clinks his glass against yours, winks. “I don’t doubt it.”

He doesn’t doubt your ability to keep him, he doubts his ability to keep you. Sooner or later the dirt is going to seep through, the lies he surrounds himself with won’t be bright enough to hide the ugliness just under the surface who he is. He’s like a maelstrom, a violent torrent of haphazard danger that drags everything down caught in its current, down to the darkest depths of who he is.

He hopes you’re smart enough to leave before you get sucked in. Because he’s too weak to push you away. Too selfish.

“Do I have any fruit left in the kitchen?” you ask him, pawing around in the bowl for another strawberry, a pout on your glistening lips.

He’s regretting putting pants on. Shaking his head, he puts his wine glass down on the end table. “Nope.” He says, not an ounce of apology in the syllable. You frown at him, settle for another wedge of cantaloupe as he coaxes the wine glass out of your hand. “It’s all in this bowl.”

This bowl that he grabs despite your hand in it. You raise your eyebrows at him, scoff somewhat petulantly. “Hey, I was- “

“Done.” He interrupts, the bowl placed off to the side, and you pinch your eyebrows together. “You’re done.” He repeats, rolling towards you, and you acquiesce silently, your body responding out of nature.

“Yeah, says who?” you softly bite as he leans over you, hand on the side of your face, warm, slightly calloused but you unconsciously lean into it.

“Me.” He quips, bends down to nip at your neck, lips plucking kisses over your pulse which races from sheer proximity of him. You tilt for his mouth, rebuttals and arguments dead on your lips like leaves in winter.

Blaine nibbles his way up your jaw, lips smooth and plush as they blaze their way to your earlobe which he teases into his mouth with his teeth. A thrumming pulses low in your belly, warm and heavy loosely coiled. You lay your hand over his own on your face, drag it down, over, until the pad of his thumb is on your lips. A little groan vibrated into your jaw, a tiny stinging bite lets you know he’s aware.

He breaks away the second your lips part and watches you suck his thumb into your mouth, plump lips sealing around the digit. Tongue swirling, dragging up the pad, pressed flat down, curve around when you go up.

His eyes are locked on you, pupils blown so wide the blue is all but gone, and you hum a moan around his thumb in your mouth. He groans quietly, the only sign he’s slipping, and eases his thumb from between your lips, grabs your chin and uses that slippery digit to force your mouth open.

His tongue takes place where you previously had his thumb, fevered, hungry, savage, dominating and so damn erotic you can barely stand it. A scrape along the back of your teeth, a teasing twist around your own tongue, a cursory sweep on your bottom palette. And all through it, you simply held on, tried to remember what was up what was down, and honest to God forgot what oxygen was. Far as you’re concerned: you can survive on the taste of Blaine alone, he’s nirvana sent from above.

But he seems to have his head screwed on right, able to handle the intoxication of the moment with more grace because he veers away, ending the onslaught of your mouth with little nips to your bottom lip. He brushes his way up to your temple, peppering the side of your face in simple pecks, and you wonder why he’s so tame.

He shows you a moment later when he nestles his hand between your thighs, cups the pulsating heat at the crux, effortlessly navigates his thumb to that sweet little bundle of nerves and rolls it. You squeak at him, hips jolting involuntarily.

Blaine huffs a laugh into your ear as he swipes back and forth over your clit with his thumb slicked by your saliva, listens to the breath trip out of you, feels your thighs squeeze his hand, and stops himself from sighing wistfully. But he does murmur something that has your back arching with mere promise hidden in his words.

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to work until noon.”

A very good thing.

Unfortunately for him, he’s not so lucky. His phone has a multitude of missed calls and texts of an urgent nature. Some time during last night his phone was lost in the shedding of clothes, and he hasn’t bothered to look for it. He’s a bit occupied, as it is.

He’ll be occupied until noon. Tortuously, painstakingly, arduously, completely occupied until noon.

Of course, by the time you both get dressed around 11:30 after a shower- _two_ showers -he’s looked at his phone and come crashing back down to earth. He puts on a sunny smile for you, but future stress has snuck into his shoulders, his usually sparkling eyes of laughter and well-placed smugness are darker, his perspectives shifting.

The Blaine that goes down to the basement of the funeral home is seeping through the cracks as he sits in the cab of his car with you in the passenger seat, and he can’t help it. He doesn’t have anything to seal those cracks up. It’s already coming apart at the newly sewed seams, hardly two hours after he decided to stick through this.

He chances a glance over at you. You’re clinging to a smile, glowing, humming with the radio, bobbing your head with the beat. Maybe he’s overreacting.

Then again, maybe he isn’t. Because while he finds you alluring, it isn’t the same level of astounded and captivated he’s been. And nothing’s changed, you haven’t changed. You’re still the same, it’s him that’s changed in preparation for the rest of his day.

Back, back through this morning: the shower, the two hours in bed, the fruit and wine, the night before. He leaps backwards through all of it, the black and white fading inwards to reveal color and sound, and stimulus.

Blaine can manage until he gets to Shady Plots. He won’t let you see underneath this mask until it is entirely too late, until he can’t help it.

He reaches over, lays a hand on your hand on your thigh, squeezes idly. You look over at him, but he’s busy focusing on the road, even so, you beam at him, cheeks high with the smile. He feels it, because a smile of his own twitches across his lips.

He’s not sure who is when he’s with you, but he knows who he is when he’s away. Knows you wouldn’t want any part of him that’s different from what you believe him to currently be. A new shade is what he dawns when you’re near, a shade he didn’t know he could be.

He doesn’t know who he is when he’s with you…but he knows he’s better with you than without.

_Convince me._

Wordlessly, you rest your hand on top of his, bumbling fingers over his knuckles before you slide your own hand underneath his and lace your fingers through his.

_Convince me…_

He squeezes your hand, feeling a little lighter in the shoulders and chest when he does.

Ever the gentleman you believe him to be, he gets out before you, opens your door and offers a hand, completely unnecessary but you take it anyway. If he wants to spoil you, treat you like royalty, who are you to stop him? It would be bold-faced lie to say that you don’t enjoy the attention, the special treatment.

It’s been a long time since anyone’s even looked at you twice in mild interest without being hammered or out of their mind horny. You’ll savor every second of his time that he gives to you. Every little gesture and compliment, you’ll eat them up.

It’s a minute before either of you says anything, he shuts the car door, steps up on the curb of the sidewalk, and looks down at you, pensive, emotions obscure. You adjust the strap of your shoulder bag, break the silence.

“So, are you going to call me in the middle of work again?”

Blaine peers off to the side with a tiny squint of his eyes, one corner of his edged up. “Probably not. I like to keep things exciting.” As if that needs to be said after spending a night with him.

“I should expect a pigeon, then?” You joke, a hand resting easy on top of your bag.

Blaine shakes his head with a cheeky smile. “Yes, expect a pigeon sometime today.” There’s mirth in it, teasing sarcasm, and you don’t think you’ll ever get tired of it. “Maybe a telegraph.”

You smile wide, butterflies fluttering in your stomach at the possibilities of today, the hope in it, the intention in his laughing blue orbs. Blaine takes a small step forward and you’re already three steps ahead; tilting your head back before his hand makes its way to the side of your neck, thumb on your jaw, breath light and pulled through your nose.

He can’t explain the way it makes his skin tingle to see you so receptive and eager to be around him, to get any sort of contact from him. So, he doesn’t bother trying to puzzle it out. No, he does something simpler; he kisses you, long and warm, heavy and slow like you don’t have work, like the city doesn’t exist, as if the world has stopped for the two of you.

You lean forward, almost on tip-toes, fingers softly curled into his shirt at his waist; something to keep you steady even though he has both his hands on you. His tongue skates across your bottom lip, and you almost whine when he pulls away. He makes your head fuzzy, fills your thoughts and senses so strongly it’s like you can’t exist without him in your system one way or another.

Your eyes flutter open to find him already pinning you with that soul-searing look that picked you apart last night and this morning. The grip you have on his shirt tightens.

“If I had a whole day with you to myself…” he trails off, something wistful, wanting in his tone, almost sad, but his eyes stay the same burning blue. He hums, somewhat thoughtful, and then flashes a smirk. “Anyway, you’d better get in there, buttercup. Don’t want to make you late.” Blaine plants kiss to your forehead, breaks away with a brush of his thumb over your cheekbone, and you hold back the pouty sigh at the back of your throat.

He makes his way around his car, glancing at you along the way, unable to keep his gaze firm on something else when you’re standing on the sidewalk. He stops at his door, fingers curled around the handle, and smirks at you, your reluctance to go inside.

“I’ll call you today.” He reminds you, promises, and it’s enough to make you nod, a little more at peace with the prospect of him leaving. You toss him a cute little wave, and turn on your heel to go inside, missing the frown that steals across his face.

He’s going to be busier than Satan on Halloween today, but he’s going to find time to talk to you. He will.

He makes promises, you believe him.

And he’s going to do his damndest to keep them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh...guys, this damn story is taking over my life, for real. Maybe I'm not detoxing Blaine from my system as well as I thought lol. Okay, thanks for reading, listening to me ramble, love you guys. Stay classy...or don't. I won't judge.


	5. Second Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liv knows there's more to this Charlie Gray case than she currently has. The one vision involving Blaine convinces her of that. But she hasn't had anymore visions, and no new information linked to her death has surfaced. They've hit a wall. At least, it appears that way until Ravi has a thought. Now, she's on her way to see you with the brains of your best friend steering the boat that is her body and her emotions.

“It’s tragic-“ Liv sighs, sinking into a chair in the office of the morgue with more pomp and drama than is usual.

“It always is, isn’t it? Death.” Ravi remarks, turning his head slightly to be heard over the tv. It had been a slow morning, nothing new cropped up on this Charlie Gray case, nothing that could be brought to the police at least.

“It’s just- these two women were closer than sisters. Childhood friends. Ugh, Ravi, they’ve been in one another’s lives since they were babies-“

“Liv, I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but if you’re going to start crying could you leave to do it? I love this part.” He points at the tv as way of explanation and apology, thick eyebrows raised.

“I’m not going to cry, I just need to vent. I mean, I don’t think I’ve been close with anyone like these two were.” Liv flashes through memories like a picture book: laughing on a swing-set, sun glaring overhead, tea parties, pool parties, sleepovers, partner-projects for school, joining the basketball team, getting the same after-school job, gossiping about boys, homecoming, prom, graduation, a shared graduation party, both applying to the same college…Charlie and her best friend were glued to the hip and happily so.

“Liv, you look two seconds away from becoming a broken fountain.”

She shakes her head. “Can you imagine going through life with this one person that’s the center of the world and then suddenly they’re just yanked from you without a reason.”

Ravi furrows his brows, turns in his chair, movie forgotten for a moment. “Well, that’s not necessarily true, is it? You said Blaine was the last person she saw before she died…” He shrugs, “That sounds like a reason.”

Liv rubs at her temples. “I know. But I didn’t see him kill her. As far as I know, it was just a chance encounter.”

“A chance encounter?” Ravi scoffs, but then he nods sarcastically. “Right, then a question: What exactly are the chances that anyone who encounters Blaine walks away unscathed?”

Liv frowns, arms crossed over her chest and sighs. “I know…I really hate that he’s feeding Seattle’s zombies.”

Ravi nods sympathetically, a cheek dimpled in a flat smile. Until something occurs to him and his eyes widen. “Liv, did you notice anything strange about Charlie’s apartment?”

Liv purses her lips, “I swear if you say something about her lingerie I just might stab you with a pen.”

“Violent. But no,” Ravi dawns a thoughtful look. “It’s just- for being as close as these two women were, don’t you find it kind of odd that there weren’t any pictures in the apartment?”

Huh. Liv honestly hadn’t noticed. She’s so full of memories, pictures seemed kind of redundant at the time. But Ravi’s right, there weren’t pictures of Charlie and her best friend anywhere in the apartment, none to speak of.

“Now, I can only think of two reasons not to have pictures of someone: either you don’t like them as much as you claim to, or you don’t need the pictures because- “

“Because that other person lives in the same city.” Liv finishes for him with a triumphant smile. Ravi nods with a matching smile,

“I’m not all just good looks.” He says as Liv whips out her phone, obviously on a mission to find this other woman. “By the way, what’s the name of Charlie’s bff?”

Liv doesn’t look up, fingers flying over her keys. “Y/N L/N.”

It’s only a few minutes later that Liv speaks up, breaking Ravi’s focus from the tv. “I found her,” she declares, excitement in her tone, far stronger than it should be, a smile on her face brighter than the glaring fluorescents in the morgue. The Charlie in her is overjoyed to be going to see Y/N.

“Oh, well done. If you weren’t a psychic zombie, you’d make a fantastic detective.” Ravi inputs not unkindly, and Liv stands, reaching for her bag where she dumped it on the desk.

“And you’d make a fantastic sidekick.” Liv starts out the door, pauses by the light switch, and turns around, watching Ravi tap his fingers on the arm rest of the chair he’s sitting in. “You want to tag along?”

He shuts the tv off, snatches his jacket off the back of his chair and grins at her. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Ravi flicks the light off, follows her out, he throws a glance around the morgue, at the table on which Charlie Gray was laid on just yesterday. “How do you think Y/N’s going to take the news, if she doesn’t already know?”

Liv stutters in her footsteps, not having thought of that. She hadn’t spared a thought about how Y/N might react, and how Liv herself might respond in kind. After all, she is riding on the brains of Y/N’s best friend. “I don’t think she knows, otherwise I’m positive she would have been here already.” She says as she hurries up the steps, Ravi beside her with his hands in his pockets.

“I’m surprised no family has come in,” Ravi muses, but Liv doesn’t respond.

She knows Charlie’s family wouldn’t bother coming for her body. Maybe once upon a time, but not anymore.

“I’m also curious: what exactly is Charlie like? You haven’t displayed any personality traits out of the norm.”

Liv creases her brow in thought. “She’s well-rounded, level headed, but stubborn, kind of detached…until she’s around Y/N.”

“Oh, she’s basically you, with an upside: she’s not always a downer,” Ravi teases, and Liv takes it in stride with a light tap on his arm, spirits slightly lifted with the friendly banter.

At least until someone patters down the steps toward them, the last person she wants to see.

“Oh, is the morgue staff going on a field-trip? An attempt to boost morale? Things do seem a little…dead around here.” Blaine says, blasé, blue eyes on Liv when he finishes his sentence.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, glaring up the four steps between them.

“Here for the good doctor; weekly check-up.” He reminds her like _Um, the weatherman said rain today. Not my fault you forgot your umbrella._

“Oh, that’s what I forgot.” Ravi mutters to himself, making a face.

Liv rolls her eyes. “Well, you’re going to have to wait, we’re on a case.”

“WE. As in two?” Blaine quirks an eyebrow, points at Ravi. “You need him for a case.”

Ravi frowns, _Trying not to be offended. Failing._

“Yes.” She bites back, fiery. “And given that you’re most likely the reason for this case, don’t expect to be waited on hand and foot.”

Blaine folds his arms over his chest, “I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that Charlie was a red-head.” Liv scowls up at him, but Ravi nods behind her, small and reluctant. “Right then, when should I come back?”

“Never.” Liv snaps, furious beyond measure, and stomps up the stairs with fire licking her heels.

Eyebrows raised, Blaine watches her pass him, surprised there isn’t smoke spouting from her ears. Her heels click hotly all the way up the stairs, and the door slams behind her with all the anger of an angsty teenager. “Alright, seriously. What time?” Blaine says now that the coast is clear.

Ravi hesitates. “Um…I think I’ll just message you when she’s not around.” He thinks of Liv’s teasing threat of stabbing him with a pen, thinks about the fact that she might really stab Blaine given the chance today. Or at least until Charlie Gray’s brains wear off.

Blaine raises his eyebrows again. “Sure. Catch you later, Doc.” He turns on his heels, saunters up the steps, cracks the door open, looks both ways for a short-fused pale zombie and steals away when he can’t catch a glimpse of her.

Ravi stays a minute in the stairwell, waiting for something to happen. Though what, he doesn’t know. It seems strange for the confrontation to end so civilly, so simply without at least some tension on both sides, some snide comments and gloating from Blaine. No arguing, just a little tantrum from Liv as a side-effect of the brains, and a departure from Blaine lacking drama or flare.

Something’s different about Seattle’s brain supplier, but Ravi can’t place what it is. He seems tamer, mellow. Of course, he’s still the sleaze bag without any morals that Ravi and Liv know him as, but…he’s somehow a calmer shade of disgraceful.

Ravi shrugs, who knows? Maybe the guy just got laid before coming here?

In any case, he has a petite anger prone zombie to catch up to. He had always thought that the stereotype of red-heads being as fiery as their hair color was a false statement. Now, he’s not so sure. Ravi can’t remember the last time he saw her that angry. He doesn’t want to be on her bad side today.

When he gets to the car, she’s already got it running, the radio on, a tight grip on the steering wheel and a steely gaze pointed out the windshield. He doesn’t say anything for a while, cautious of how high the lava might be at the lip of the volcano that is her temper.

It’s about five minutes into the drive that Liv finally breaks the silence, her tone settled and calm. Back to herself. “Okay, maybe Charlie wasn’t as level-headed as I thought.”

Ravi smiles. “Oh, really? What gave you that idea?”

Liv sighs with a roll of her eyes. “If we were any closer to the autopsy tables I might’ve stabbed him with a scalpel.” She says lightly, as if just discussing everyday news.

Ravi shrugs. “God knows that’s overdue.”

Liv laughs, “Don’t encourage this brain, Ravi. She’s serious about her threats.”

“Red-heads.”

Liv hums, glancing at the GPS suctioned to her dashboard. A few more minutes and she’ll be at Y/N’s address. Bees of excitement buzz around her brain, urge her to speed in an effort to get there faster, but she fights it and maintains her current pace. It’s like there are bugs crawling all over her, joyful and impatient as she is to see Y/N.

Poor Charlie. She’s sure this is hardly the way that Charlie ever thought she’d have to say goodbye to Y/N. Does this even count? Sure, Liv has Charlie’s brains, but she’s hardly the red-headed, spunky, focus-driven woman Y/N’s known her whole life.

She scratches at her jaw, a nervous tick that is not her own, and sighs deeply. Ravi peers at her side-long.

“You alright, Liv?”

A loaded question for sure. She nods absently, looking around for the street on which you live. “Sort of. The Charlie in my veins is like a golden retriever puppy seeing their owner after a vacation. And the part of me that’s me is just dreading this.”

She doesn’t see the street sign, but she pulls along a road anyway, seeming to know like muscle memory when to turn, when to slow down and where to park along the sidewalk, the GPS forgotten. She looks out the windshield, leaned over the steering wheel to take a gander at the apartment complex you live in.

She locks her blue-green eyes on the fourth window up of this high-rise, is hit with a memory of staring out that window into the street below as rain beats on the glass.

_Champagne in one hand, soft indie music rolling around somewhere behind her as you talk, venting about your day at work. She feels content, fulfilled even though you’re distraught. It’s the belonging, she supposes. How appropriate it is that she’s in your apartment, lending an ear and sipping on your alcohol as a storm rages outside._

_“I mean, on one hand, I appreciate the hours they’re giving me. It’s just-“_

_“You wish it wasn’t a time span that men came in to get drunk.”_

_You snap your fingers at her, nodding from your spot on the couch, pillows piled up around you. “Yes. Omigod. That’s exactly it.” You sigh, swirl your champagne. “It’s like college; drunk guys whistling and giving bedroom eyes that could curdle milk-“_

_Charlie snorts a laugh, smiles at you toothily, sips from her glass. “Well, you get that book of yours published, you won’t have to repeat the horrors of your college experience.”_

_“Y-yeah.” You agree, drink from your glass with a wrinkle between your brows._

_Charlie notices. “Attack of writer’s block again, huh?” she guesses, pads over to the opposite end of the couch, perches on the armrest._

_She watches you pout into your champagne, doom and gloom, defeatism wrapping around your shoulders like a blanket, and huffs at you. “You know what you need?” You shake your head at her, thump your head on the backrest of the couch,_

_“I have not a clue. Enlighten me, Ms. Gray, on what I am lacking in life.”_

_She rolls her eyes at your melodrama. “You need to get out, out of Seattle. Go on a vacation, or just take a day to leave the city. A change of scenery could do you some good.”_

_You nod as well as you can, inch a smile. “You want to tag along?”_

_She grins, cheeks rising, freckles popping up easier on her face with the expression. “Duh. How do you expect to find inspiration if I’m not with you? You don’t have the nose for adventure, Y/N.”_

Liv gasps, blinking rapidly as she hits reality like a stone wall. Adventure. Is that what you were looking for when you died, Charlie?

“You just had a vision.” Ravi points out, inched forward in his seat to gauge Liv’s expression. “What happened? Anything to incriminate our favorite zombie-not-zombie?”

Liv shakes her head, melancholy dipping into her chest like cold, thick syrup. “No, just a girl’s night in.” She opens her car door, and Ravi unlatches his seat-belt,

“Ooh, was there a pillow fight?” he asks, teasing, but Liv shuts her door, focus trained on the building with a stony expression.

“I wonder if she’s home?” Ravi thinks aloud, bumping his door shut with his hip, and Liv nods on her way to the sidewalk.

“That’s her car.” She points off to the side, bee-lining for the doors without a backwards glance. Ravi regards the vehicle she claimed is yours. Something simple, quaint. A Honda of an unknown year. He’s not really a car guy.

Shrugging, he rushes after Liv. The elevator ride is quiet aside from the music which is obnoxiously upbeat and clashes with whatever mood Liv is trying to convince herself out of. Ravi leans back against the wall, counts the seconds to an appropriate moment to cut through the silence.

It’s just when the doors open to the fourth floor. “You gonna be alright, Liv?”

Instead of answering, she takes a calming breath, squares her shoulders and leaves the elevators. Ravi thinks he just saw a shred of that stubbornness Liv was talking about. Or maybe that was all Liv, she’s never been one to back away from something just because it’s difficult.

He catches up to her at the door, fist stalled in front of the wood like she’s a statue. Glancing at her, he raises his own hand and knocks. The sound makes her jump, but despite the sad tug of her lips, she nods at him in thanks. She doubts she could’ve found the courage to knock.

They hear you laugh through the wood, feet thudding on the hardwood as you make your way to them. They hear you carry on your conversation, voice light and warm and so full of happiness it almost penetrates Liv’s bubble of sad and sorry that hugs her like a vice.

But deep down, Charlie is ecstatic, curious about what’s making Y/N so giddy and bubbly. Gossip time, need details, and champagne, and that lovely couch.

Liv shakes her head at the emotions and urges, battling Charlie to the back-burner.

They catch the tail-end of your conversation, sweet and short, sun-shiney. A goodbye, reluctant at that, but understanding.

You open the door, and they’re hit with the most care-free smile they’ve ever seen, bright eyes, optimism beaming from you like rays. Liv freezes, her nervous system shocked with mixed signals. The urge to just barge in and plop herself at your island counter on a stool, and give you cliff-notes of the last few months of her life with a let-me-tell-you attitude is overwhelming. Like instinct or second nature, reflex: when someone sneezes you say bless you.

Y/N opens her door to Charlie, Charlie walks in.

But she’s not Charlie.

“Hi, what can I do for you?” You ask them with high eyebrows, a kind pitch to your voice, and Liv opens her mouth, closes it.

Ravi, bless the sweet man, takes the lead. “Hi, my name’s Ravi, this is Liv Moore: We’re M.E.s with the Seattle police department, we’re hoping you can answer some questions about Charlie Gray.”

A moment of confusion, words not computing and then it dawns, hits like a semi-truck. If Liv wasn’t already dead, she’s sure the expression on your face would’ve killed her on the spot. Like someone yanked the sun from the sky right in front of you, stole your life’s savings, told you your best friend is dead.

The craziest part is that a fraction of Charlie is still very much alive in the body of an undead M.E. Or maybe that’s irony?

Robotically, you move to the side to let them in, your mind wiped clean. Charlie. Dead. Is the only thing that sticks. You’d lead them to the living room, but you can only manage to go so far before you have to sit down. So, you drag a stool around to the opposite side of the counter and sit, facing them.

You take a steadying breath, fold your arms over the counter. “What do you want to know?” You ask them, trying not to think of Charlie, the last time the two of you were together. Just a snippet of a memory will be enough to un-do you.

“When was the last time you saw or talked to her?” The pale, white-haired woman asks, eyebrows so softly angled in sympathy it makes you feel a fraction better.

Ha. Here you are, not wanting to remember, and getting asked questions that force you to. “Last week. Movie night.” You say, blinking back against stinging lids. “The lady next door can affirm that alibi; claims we were too noisy, practically knocked my door down so she could complain to my face.”

You sigh, roll your lips into your mouth before asking a question of your own. “Can I ask how long she’s been…” you don’t finish your sentence, it’s like saying it out loud will make it true. If you can hold the words inside, then maybe it isn’t real.

“Two days.”

You close your eyes, pinch the bridge of your nose, and nod as if it’s all okay. Like they accidently opened your mail and didn’t just inform you that your friend of almost three decades is now dead. Gone, never again to grace your doorstep with her shiny red pumps and big sunglasses, her chic but elegant dresses that she wore with humble attitude.

Now who the Hell were going to vent to about the mild inconveniences of life, who are you going to have movie night with? Who’s going to show up to your apartment unannounced and drink all your wine?

“Can you think of anything that was different about her the last time you saw her? Did she mention anything about her life that was out of the ordinary?” Liv asks, tentatively breaking through the confetti of your pity party.

You rack your brain as well as you can at the moment. You filter through the conversation of that night, push aside the usual and typical and dig for the strange. Anything that could help. “Um, well…she mentioned something about the drug problem in the city. Said it was getting out of control. That’s a topic she’s never brought up before. We try to keep movie nights light.”

“Drug problem?” Liv prompts, and you nod, rubbing your knuckles over your lips.

“Yeah, said a drug dealer approached her on the way here, something about a new drug on the street. Taking the city by storm.” Jesus, you hope she didn’t stick her nose somewhere it didn’t belong. A city-wide drug pandemic is just the type of thing Charlie would deem as adventure. Where do the drugs come from, who’s running the operation, what is this new drug? All things that would light up Charlie’s brain like a Christmas tree.

“Just one more question.” Liv says, just as ready for this interview to be over as you are. It’s getting harder and harder not to walk over to where she knows you have liquor, pull out a bottle and slam it down on the counter with clear proposition. Something Charlie did countless times when you’d get worked up beyond reason over something.

You nod blankly, giving her permission to continue.

“Did she happen to say anything about anyone, maybe someone new in her life? A new friend, a strange encounter like with that drug dealer?”

You go through last week with a fine-tooth comb, scraping every second down to atoms looking for something. But you come up empty.

“No, nobody new.” You murmur, tiredness dripping from your voice like rain off a roof. The two M.E.s stand, and you do too, hardly hearing them thank you for your time. You release a shaky breath, hoping you ask this question without turning into a weeping mess. “Is…is her body still at the morgue?”

They stop in the hallway to the door, sharing a look, and the man heads out first, leaving you and the abnormally pale woman alone.

“Yes.” She says when he’s opened the door. “It’s too late today to see her, but you can come in tomorrow whenever you want.”

You nod a few times, feeling the dam start to crack, but you need to finish this conversation. “How soon can I take her body?”

“Well, there’s paperwork to fill out, but-“ Liv breaks off, seeing your eyes start to glisten, and smiles, pained. You sniffle, brave a wet smile,

“Okay, thank you.”

Thank you for bringing me the worst news anyone could ever receive in their life. Thank you for being the messenger of depression.

Liv reaches out, gives your arm a gentle squeeze, and slips out quick, her own eyes starting to tear up. She hears your door click shut, blinks rapidly, and half-jogs down the fourth-floor hallway. The emotions abate the further away she gets, and by the time she reaches Ravi holding the elevator doors open she’s close to being her normal self.

“Is she…are you ok?” Ravi asks, altering his choice of words, because obviously you aren’t fine. But Liv could be, depending on whose brains are behind the wheel.

Liv releases a gust of breath, jams the first-floor button and welcomes the awful elevator music like an old friend. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ok.” She says, monotone, fast.

“So, I can’t help but notice: you didn’t have any visions. I figured being across the table of your lunch’s best friend would trigger something…” Always trying to lighten the mood with slightly inappropriate, falsely callous humor.

Liv shakes her head. “No, no visions. But I did notice something.”

Ravi raises his eyebrows. “Oh, do tell. I _hate_ cliffhangers.”

Liv’s mouth presses flat in a frown. “She was wearing Blaine’s shirt.”

“What now?” Ravi responds, mouth open, eyes squinted.

“When I went to see him the other day he was wearing that exact shirt.”

“Liv-“ Ravi starts, a cautious grimace pulling his lips long.

“It’s too big for her, a man’s size, and it smelled like his cologne. The collar was also slightly frayed near the top button.” Liv rattles off her proof with the aid of her fingers and a critical tone. “It was his shirt, Ravi. I’d bet a week’s worth of brains on it.”

Ravi sighs, throws his head back with a dramatic groan. “Nothing’s ever easy, is it?”

Liv crosses her arms, temper flaring up, disapproval too. Both side-effects of Charlie being overly protective of her best friend. “Blaine is unarguably tied up in this. But how or why remains to be seen.”

Ravi peers at Liv, frowning slightly at the judgmental and angry waves rolling off her. “Just out of curiosity: If you tried to kill Blaine in the morgue and I got in the middle of it, would you kill me too?”

Liv snaps her gaze to him, looking indignant, and it isn’t the response Ravi was aiming for because he holds his hands up, palms facing outward.

“I’m just trying to plan for tomorrow. You know, find out if I need a bunker for WWIII…”

The elevator doors ding open, and Liv stomps out, shoulders tight in irritation, most likely stress. Definitely heart-ache.

Ravi waits until she’s out of the building to venture into the foyer. And then he stands at the glass doors, watching her from behind the safety of a door that locks as she sits in the car and slowly cools down. He doesn’t leave the foyer for ten minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* Poor Charlie. Poor Liv. Poor you. Poor everybody. Except for Ravi, Ravi's fine.


	6. Saltwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A firm foundation, something steady and constant. That's what Charlie was, and she was bright and hopeful, and loud, larger than life. Bold. And now she's gone. Gone like she never existed. How are you supposed to deal with that? Maybe you're not. Not alone at least. There's only one person you can think of to call, to lean on now. You only hope he cares a fraction as much as you feel-...whatever it is you feel for him.

It’s a very long minute that you spend leaned against your door, wet gaze on your ceiling as you drag breath through dust and gravel, choppy and ragged. It’s insane Charlie being gone, just whisked away on a breeze of tragedy like a flimsy leaf. There was no warning, no clues…last time Charlie talked to you her topics of conversation consisted of shopping, gossiping about the secretary at work, her new car, setting up a date to get lunch together.

You shuffle your way back to the counter and stare out the window over the sink, another high-rise apartment building across the street from you. You sigh, drop your head into your hands and let the word _gone_ rattle around your brain like marbles in a glass bowl. She was the one thing you could count on, the one person that always had your back no matter what.

All those years…all those memories are the only links to her you have now, she’s gone from everything except your past. Charlie’s been washed away from life like chalk in rain, bleeding and dispersing in splotches of loose cohesion. You’re almost convinced this is some sort of elaborate joke, that any minute she’s going to bang on your door, laughing her ass off at you.

But seconds tick by and the quiet with them, noise of traffic and your own soft breathing are the only sounds that permeate the air. Your phone buzzes, vibrating on the counter like a tiny jackhammer, and you drag it over thinking it’s probably Blaine. The thought doesn’t even make you smile.

When you light the screen up though, you see it isn’t Blaine, but a reminder.

_Wednesday: LUNCH WITH CHARLIE!!!_

That’s it. That’s all it takes to break you, to yank the floor out from underneath you and pierce the stonewall that your tears are dammed up behind. The sobs tear themselves out of you like white-hot claws shredding your chest to shreds, violent and painful.

It’s unfair, it’s too sudden, it’s wrong for her life to end the way it did. It’s cruel: she had her whole life ahead of her, full of promise and possibility and all the good things she deserved. She didn’t deserve this. You didn’t either, but you’re not to that stage of grieving.

You’re shell-shocked, devastated, choking on tears and blubbering like a baby on your kitchen floor, denial and disbelief oozing from you almost as heavy as your breathing and frequent as the saltwater staining your cheeks.

Never have you had to deal with anything this harsh and world-altering. At least, not on your own. Charlie was always there when you’d have breakdowns either with a shoulder to cry on, or a bottle of booze with a no-nonsense, stop feeling sorry for yourself speech.

This isn’t something you can handle. Death of a pet, death of a relative, getting kicked out of your apartment, losing your job: all things you could handle. The death of Charlie? Not a chance.

The world is blurry through your tears, and air is unforgiving as its hiccupped into your lungs, nothing filters through like it should and you hardly know what you’re doing with your phone. But your shaking hands hold it steady enough for your stumbling fingers to tap at the screen.

Through fog and muddled hearing the phone rings against your ear, barely discernable over your whimpers and sniffles. It’s a million years before it stops ringing, and a voice breaks through the sorrow to blanket you in something that feels like security.

“Hey, babe. Miss me that much already?” His voice rolls into your head with all the ease and comfort of a catchy song, notes you hang onto in desperation for something that’s familiar. It makes your heart for another reason; that there is some relief to be found in the midst of the loss you’ve just suffered.

You aren’t sure how he feels about whatever the two of you share. If he thinks there’s anything at all between you, but you don’t much care right now. All you care is that he sneaks his way into the grief, separates it from you by a few inches. But you’ll take those few inches. He’s a kind of balm you can run to in order to ease the pain and sting of hardship.

You drag a hand through your hair, sweeping it all back from your face. “Blaine-“ is all you manage, your lips trembling just as much as your voice. And it’s like you can feel him frown, there’s a palpable flavor to the miniscule silence between his name and whatever he says next.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” He asks softly, his tone guarded against whatever it is causing your tears. Maybe if he’s strong enough to not be affected it will stop you from crying.

You shake your head even though he can’t see you and squeeze your eyes shut. There aren’t words, words you want to utter. What you do want is this day over, this obscene nightmare behind you and revealed to be just that: A nightmare. You want to wake up.

You can’t see him on the other end of the line, can’t see the way he glares at everything going on in the basement of Shady Plots, the warning looks he shoots at employees that seem at all curious about the phone call he’s taking. But you can feel the tension like he’s here in front of you with a furrowed brow and tight-pressed lips.

After a second of listening to you sniffle and swallow thickly, he talks again, voice just as soothing. “I’m coming over.” Simple as that, no question in there, no ambiguity or inquiry of motive. He’s coming over because you’re crying and you called him. Done. That’s all there is to it.

He hesitates for a second, wondering how to say goodbye, what string of words to chase after his previous sentence. Wonders what he can say in departure that might make the passage of time easier to swallow for you.

“Blaine?”

He almost misses you whisper his name, subdued and watery as it is. He doesn’t say anything to anyone in Shady Plots as he legs it up the stairs, nothing on his mind except getting to you. “Yeah, Y/N?”

He listens to you shake a breath into the receiver, a direct line to his heart-strings: the sound of you distraught and suffering. It snaps at those figurative cords wrapped around the blood-pumping muscle in his chest.

“Can you- Can you just talk to me until you get here?” The first full sentence you’ve spoken since he’s picked up the phone and he takes it as a good sign. A sign that you’re finding your composure, little by little, second by second.

Like he’s going to tell you no? “Sure thing, babe. You know I love to talk about myself.” He slams the front door behind him, digging in his pocket for his car keys. A weak little laugh tumbles into his ear and he smiles. “But first, let me tell you about the amazing morning I had.” He’s going to embarrass you before he even leaves the street, it’s his goal.

True to his word, he talks all the way to your apartment building about anything, everything. Coaxes a few responses out of you, not at all the bubbly and sweet inflections he’s used to, but it’s something. Something other than morose silence with wet sniffles as background noise.

Your apartment building looms above him like a stalwart sentinel of rigid reproach, grey and unfeeling in the daylight, specked with dark tinted windows and spotted with sun damage, water damage near window sills and the doorway. It’s like your mood has changed the entire complex into something undesirable, sucked the color and underlying beauty out of it.

What makes the building beautiful? To him, just that you live in it. That’s where it steals its aesthetic appeal.

“I remember the walk to your apartment. Felt like a year in this stupid elevator.” He mutters glancing around in ire, nudging the number 4 on the panel with his elbow. You hum in his ear, melancholy but trying to be reminiscent. “Still does.”

Blaine watches the number climb on the display above the doors, tapping his foot impatiently, hoping no one else in the building needs a ride. He hasn’t brought up the source of your distress, remarked on it. It would be counter-productive to get you crying on the phone, to force those flood-gates open when he can do nothing to close them.

The elevator doors part, open onto your hallway, a strip of pale red carpet running from one end to the other, light overhead in half-globes throwing bright glares and sharp shadows on the walls and doors, around corners. It’s somehow gloomy despite the shine of it all.

“Y/N, you still there?” He asks, straining to hear anything from your end as he strides down the hall, hand in pocket. The fourth floor is so quiet, hardly a sound to be heard and for good reason. The fourth floor housed a multitude of elderly people, or middle-aged loners too absorbed in work to do something as macabre as _live_.

Rather than verbally answer, you open your apartment door, red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks greeting him from ten feet away. If Blaine wasn’t rushing before, he is now, working his strides as long as they can be, fumbling his phone into his pocket.

No greeting words, just a quick maneuver of a footstep, bodies turned and a hand so fondly placed on the back of your neck to coax you into him. The door shut so quick with the heel of his shoe, the sound the starting gun for your tears again. And no questions from him as you fist the material of his shirt and let loose your grief in a fashion you haven’t done since you were a child.

Blaine can’t imagine what it is that’s been dumped on you to cause this kind of heart-break. The closest he’s ever been to that is when his dog ‘ran away’, but that doesn’t compare to this, whatever it is. Saying those re-hashed words of ‘It’s okay, it’s alright’ doesn’t cross his mind, because it sure as Hell isn’t alright. This state you’re in- it’s not okay.

He doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like that the only thing he can do is rub a hand up and down your back, massage your skull through the messy tendrils of your hair you let down from a bun. Doesn’t like that this morning was perfect in every definition of the word only for it to come crashing down to this; you in a puddle of tears.

There’s no prompting for an explanation from him, but you mumble into his shirt anyway, words fat and thick with tears. “She’s gone.” It’s repeated a few more times on a sorrow-soaked waver before he gently interrupts.

“Who?”

A hiccup or two, a hard swallow. And you manage to speak, breath humid against his neck. “My best friend- Charlie. She’s dead.”

Cold, water down his spine like a spray from a showerhead. Distance ahead removed to inches, breathing stopping in his lungs without volition. Is it coincidence, or just bad luck? What kind of cosmic joke has he been thrown into? Has God gotten that bored? This Charlie, your best friend, dead. And Liv, with Charlie’s brains convinced that he’s the cause of her death.

But he can’t be. He doesn’t even remember her. Hasn’t met her once in his life.

He’s not involved with your Charlie’s untimely demise. Absolutely not. Then again, he doesn’t really remember anyone he’s killed in cold blood, so he could have played a part, but-

You choke on a sob, chest heaving on broken inhales, hot breath fanning along his collar-bone, your tears soaked through his shirt.

If he’s the reason you’re like this, this destroyed and demolished- shattered down to chips made of sorrow- he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. So, he convinces himself in that moment: no matter what comes to light, he’ll make sure he’s innocent in your eyes.

“I’ve gotcha, Y/N.” he murmurs into your hair, arms wrapping tight around your shaking shoulders and back. “I gotcha.” He promises, adjusting slightly to rest his cheek on top your head. That rings true in his ears, the most honest words that have ever crossed his lips.

Time passes, as it does. And the crying takes its toll, the despair raking from you strength and appetite and desire for conversation. All that’s left is fatigue, heavy and laden and leaving you feeling like a water-logged shirt. Blaine doesn’t egg you to eat something, or talk, or even to stay awake.

No, he just walks you to your room, arm around your waist and helps you slither into bed, get comfy. Brushes hair back from your face, swipes gently at tear-tracks on your cheeks, acts as a silent comfort because he can’t really find any words to say. _Are_ there any words to say?

It’s a relief to see your puffy eyes close, the tears stop, those heavy wrinkles from sadness slip away, off your face. To listen to your breathing even out, slow and calm with sleep. It’s a shame, though, that sleep is only a temporary sliver of peace from this tragedy that’s turned your life upside down.

Blaine watches you fall into the arms of slumber like a weary child after a day of playing in the yard. Tilts his head as he listens to something interrupt the soft sound of your breathing. Rain. He turns his head, observes streaks of water running down your bedroom window pane, shadows making the rivulets and drops look dark grey on the clear glass.

It's been raining a lot lately. In direct conflict with the predictions of the weather man. Johnny Frost might be the most hated man in Seattle this week. Blaine shakes his head, tucks your blankets around you and leaves, cracking the door behind him.

He goes about shutting lights off in your apartment until he’s alone in the low-lit kitchen sitting at the island counter. The wine glasses from this morning are still in the sink, the fruit bowl plastic-wrapped and put in the fridge. Evidence of a perfect day by all rights. But day must bleed into night eventually, he muses.

Your phone is laying on the counter, his beside it. Yours is password protected. His isn’t. Regardless, he manages to do what he needs to: look up the number for the restaurant, leave a message for them. And then he’s nothing to do but sit in the dim light and watch the sunset glance and bounce off buildings from the kitchen window, rain adding extra shine to the glow.

He makes one last call for the night: Shady Plots.

It feels almost like a crime he’s committing by calling his underground business. Like blasphemy, to be bringing that part of his life into your apartment, tainting the air with this other half of who he is. Bringing together two opposite lives, two starkly contrasted colors together to muddle and make mess. Like food coloring in water, spreading, blooming and spiraling, changing the water to a color that can never be taken away.

He wonders what color it is that leaks from him when he’s removed from you?

Before he knows it, he’s scooping his wine glass out of the sink and opening the cabinet for the rest of the bottle, helping himself like he has the right. As if he belongs in your kitchen in the late hours of the day pouring a glass of wine to contemplate into as he mopes and broods. He doesn’t. But he pretends he does.

Otherwise, he’d have no choice but to leave. And he doesn’t want to leave.

Ankles crossed, kitchen sink supporting his leaning weight, he sips his wine and stares off blankly into the gloominess of your kitchen and the hallway leading to it, counting all of his mistakes and failures as if he’s going to come up with a low number.

Sirens blare from the street below, some kind of emergency and Blaine pays it no mind as the sound wails past the building, red and blue lights blinking from below, reflecting off windows and various metal surfaces to make its way into the dark of the room.

He pays it no mind. Because he’s committed a much greater crime at this kitchen counter, and it warrants more attention than sirens in the street.

Glass empty, he cradles it in palm and observes shadows skate along the floor and walls with the passage of time until his feet throb from standing so long. Only when there isn’t light left from outside to create shadows does he replace his glass in the sink and sneak off to your bedroom with eyes that see perfectly well in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus this story is taking off on me, broke free of its reins and I have no chance of catching it. I feel so bad for writing this story when so many people are waiting on me to continue or finish my Supernatural fics...but what can I do? I Spin For You has gotten its hook in me deep. Whoever is taking time to read this story and love on it, thank you. Thank you so much! Feel like i'm writing for an audience of three: myself, doctorboo82, and Fox_Scriber. Special thank yous go out to you two <3


	7. A Timely Piece of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night is always darkest before the day...how annoying that there's a point to that. Because, somehow, miraculously, Blaine DeBeers saves your morning. You're so glad he isn't content to let you mope around, or at least, to let you mope around alone. He's supportive in a way you'd been hesitant about wanting. But as is his habit, he proves you wrong for being uncertain. Proves you dead wrong. How you've made it through life without knowing him is a mystery you'll never solve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to the very few that follow this story. I LOVE YOU. Dammit you guys are awesome. I totally didn't mean for this chapter to be as long as it is. It didn't look like this much in Word, but appearances are deceiving I suppose. None of this is proofread just because re-reading would spark my perfectionist tendencies and you'd all be waiting for this until you were gray and wrinkly. Love to you lovelies.

Blaine wakes a few times before dawn, muscles wired and tense, eyes heavy but stubbornly open. He’s worried. About this mess with Charlie, about himself (he had skipped out on that appointment with Ravi- he couldn’t just leave you to drown in your tears, now could he?), about you. Worried about your grief, worried about you spending any- _any_ -time at all around Liv, he’s worried you’ll find out about him somehow. Who he is, what he does…what he’s done.

He’s worried about what will happen after you know, though he has a guess. You’d have be crazy, or equally screwed up as he is to want to stay with him.

And speaking of staying…are the two of you together? It’s only been a few days since you met. Sure, he spent the night, has your number in his phone, thinks about you constantly, and yes, you did think to call him when sorrow clawed you half to death…

But are you _together_?

Blaine wants to say no.

But not as much as he wants to say yes.

The one thing that’s glared and roared at since he met you is that he isn’t after you for sex. The first night, at the restaurant, he could’ve just let the story end there when he got called away. But he didn’t, instead, he asked for your number. And even when the prospect of seeing you in person didn’t seem possible, he still texted, still thought about you.

If this was about sex, he could’ve left this morning, cut you off. Carried on with his life, no sign of you in it. But dammit-

Here he is. In your apartment, laying in your bed on his side watching you sleep, hoping the visual will soothe him. And it does. Infuriatingly, seeing you puts him at ease, relaxes him. How confusing is that?

Blaine knows all of this will catch up to him, but how or when, he doesn’t have a clue. He only hopes that when it does, he can protect you from all of it. None of this makes sense to him. Never has someone gotten under his skin like this, crawled into the shadow cloaked places of his mind.

He’s avidly denying a bold truth, something obvious and undeniable and sudden. Denying the tears in his sail, the holes in his boat, the lack of wind, the sweltering sun. Lying to himself about all of it. If he accepts what he knows to be true about you it could send everything tumbling down around him in smoldering bits of finality.

He closes his eyes, turns on his side and stares out the window, though the view isn’t much and ignores his urge to roll over and wrap himself around you. It’s almost an hour that he takes to fall asleep, his mind slowly cascading down through all the cob-webbed worry he has sitting in his head like forgotten furniture, neglected and avidly hated for existing.

Of course, the conscious mind is no match for the unconscious.

He learns that rather ungracefully when he wakes for the final time, curled around you, nestled tightly but comfortably against your back, all his limbs warmly roped up in you. The bitter sting of failure is placated by the scent of your hair, honeysuckle and peach. You’re peacefully held in sleep, something Blaine finds miraculous considering how worked up you were last night.

No creases dug into your brow, nor any lines from frowns outlining your lips, it’s almost as if yesterday’s drama didn’t happen. Almost.

He slithers out of bed, the motion familiar, as if imprinted in his DNA and grabs his shoes off the floor. He hears you shift, sheets sliding, whispering as you readjust and get comfortable. As has become his favorite room in your apartment to be alone, he goes to the kitchen. And there he puts on his shoes, rubs the grit from his eyes and opens your refrigerator, intentions momentarily obscure. Is he here for more wine, maybe that bowl of fruit, or is he just trying to pass time, occupy his mind with mundane tasks?

He's here to make breakfast.

That’s the conclusion he comes to when he finds himself taking a carton of eggs out of your fridge. His mind goes on auto-pilot as he meanders around, familiarizing himself with the drawers and cabinets and utensils.

Eggs in bowl with milk, whisk, squint at color, add more milk, whisk again. Pop back into fridge for the onion and bell pepper he saw, glance outside at the gloomy, muggy weather, continue with breakfast. Chop, chop, chop until the sound grows old, scoop butter into skillet on stove, set on low. Back to the fridge for bagels this time…

This is how he spends his next 10 or fifteen minutes, stopping in between to play some music on his phone, something peaceful and lightly decadent as he goes about making breakfast, ignoring the view outside. He loses himself in the process, in the violins, so vibrant and lively and separate from the area they are in, the time-zone they’ve been flung into.

The 1700s have made their way into the 21st century with all the grace and regality of royalty. As if they rightly belong where they’ve been set to play, no qualms or questions about the venue, the time, it doesn’t matter.

That’s something Blaine has always liked about classical music; it can be rightly fit into any moment of the day. Whether in a high-end restaurant, during a proposal, driving through town, or cooking breakfast. Where it settles is where it belongs, effortlessly. Classical music fills a space, claims it, but subtly with majesty and propriety.

Sometimes, he wishes he knew how to play violin. Especially when pieces reach a short climax, and then drop abruptly to something morose and heavy. He admires those moments in the movement of a composition. It’s much like life itself the way everything climbs and climbs and then falls without warning.

It’s also like your entrance into the kitchen: without warning.

“It sounds like a string orchestra is in concert in my kitchen.”

Blaine whips his head, looking over his shoulder at you. You stand by the island, blinking sleep out of dulled eyes and braving a weak smile at the scattered mess he’s made of all your counters.

He wants to say something like: Oh, sure. You wake up early today? Or, Hey, I’m just adding some culture to your apartment. But instead he says,

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

You shake your head. “I couldn’t sleep any longer.” For a second, you listen to eggs sizzle on the stove, the spatula graze the skillet as he scoops the eggs around, seemingly low on early morning chit-chat. You start grabbing things up off the counters to put back in the fridge, and Blaine twists slightly from his position at the stove.

“I was going to get that.” He says, halfway apologetic and petulant at the same time. You flash him a quick smile, something that touches only your lips, steers far clear of your eyes.

The gesture is nice. Him making breakfast for you. Most likely hoping to catch you still in bed when he’s done, but, nothing really cracks through the thick layer of grief that blankets your emotions like a cocoon. You’re surprised you’re functional, awake, inwardly shocked dumb that you haven’t started crying again. Maybe you’re trying to set a record and you just don’t know it.

When everything is put away you rest back against the fridge, watch the final moments of breakfast happen; eggs scooped onto plates next to bagels, bell peppers and onions peeking out among the scrambled eggs. When he turns to put it all on the island counter, you open the fridge again on a whim, and take out the bowl of fruit as well as a small carton of cream cheese.

A hand finds its way to your lower back, gently placed, fingertips smoothly rubbing for a moment. “Sit. Eat.” Not a command, but a subdued plea, carefully covered for what it is; a request born from worry. His arms slip around your waist to steal the bowl and cream cheese from your grip.

“I could get used to you in my kitchen every morning if you’re going to wait on me like this.” Points for effort, but miles shy of the teasing tone you’re aiming for.

Regardless, he smiles in kind and slips away. “Sure thing, buttercup. So, get comfy.” He tells you, laying those two things on the counter before gliding his way to your coffee maker.

You hadn’t even noticed the scent of coffee in the air. You sit down on a stool while he pours steaming hot coffee into two mugs. You drag his phone towards you, curious about the classical music bouncing off the walls of your kitchen.

“It’s Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.” He says, putting down the mugs. You nod absently, curl your hands around the hot to the touch porcelain, and cautiously lift the cup to your lips. Blaine sweeps around the counter to plop down next to you on another stool. “No teasing remarks about liking classical music?” he asks you, half-turned towards you.

You shake your head. “Mm. It’s nice,” you take a tentative sip of your coffee. “Sometimes I forget it’s an option.”

Blaine nods. A common ailment of today’s society.

You smile at him, an eyebrow cocked in quiet challenge and question, and he stalls with his mug practically at his mouth.

“Said that out loud, didn’t I?” he asks needlessly, a wee bit sheepish as you nod with laughter in your eyes. Though, he’s not so regretful about embarrassing himself if it’ll get you to smile. He clears his throat, keeps conversation going. “So, sometimes you forget it’s an option. Was there a time when you didn’t?”

You nod, “Yeah, I went through a classical music phase not too long ago. And by not too long ago I mean college.” You stir around your scrambled eggs, scoop up a spoonful and wait for the steam to die down. “I never really got anywhere near Vivaldi. I stayed with Debussy and Chopin, occasionally ventured out for neighborly chit-chat with Mozart.”

“Neighborly chit-chat.” He repeats, a humored crease in his brow as he does it. He likes the way you put that. As if the composers aren’t dead, as if they are very much alive and at the nearest convenience of listeners. “I’m jealous. I didn’t know you were neighbors with Mozart.”

You roll your eyes around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “You wish,” you say after you swallow. “But there is an elderly man on this floor named Wolfgang.”

Blaine smiles. “Close enough.”

The entirety of breakfast passes without notable remark, nothing to mark in the calendar with exclamation points and multiple circles of importance. But it’s pleasant and smoothly done without any awkward silences or scrambled sentences, a rush to keep conversation going. It sails on like a boat down a river.

When the dishes are in process of being washed is when everything slows down, when the rest of the day catches up to you in all its morbid glory. What you have to do, people you’ll have to call, make arrangements…for Charlie’s funeral.

Suddenly, you want to go back to bed. You don’t want to think about today, or tomorrow, definitely not yesterday. Yesterday was perfect, for lack of a better term. Even work wasn’t that bad-

“Shit.” You curse quietly, rub at your temples. You had completely forgotten about work, it just slipped your mind with everything going on.

“What’s up?” Blaine asks, adjusting another dish in the drainer. You try to ignore the twinge of domesticity of all this, the faint throb of _want,_ and Blaine, and _coffee and pancakes, morning paper,_ and how all of those things are dying to fit together in one picture. You try to ignore. You try so hard. But the way he dries his hands on the dish towel, folds it and then drapes it over the sink faucet without needng to look to do it…the picture is damn near conjured.

You sigh, expelling your thoughts with your breath. “Work. I totally forgot to call them, I have to go in today-“

Blaine holds up a hand, cutting off your soon to be rant. “I called them last night, buttercup. You don’t need to worry about that.”

Your shoulders droop in relief, and the tightness that binds your chest like rubber-bands loosens somewhwat. You smile gratefully, hit him with the softest voice you have. “Thank you. I’d be a damn train-wreck this morning if you weren’t here.”

“Flattery, huh?” Blaine muses, and steps forward to brace his hands on the edge of the counter, arms spread. “You must want something.” He teases, smirking in familiar fashion.

_Damn right I want something. I want you here, every morning with one of my coffee mugs in your hand, and a sleepy smile just for me. I want you-_

“Do you think you could go with me?” You ask suddenly in an attempt to stop your train of thought, hardly giving a second’s contemplation about the words until they’re out there in the open. And then you have to run with them. “To- to the morgue. I have to get her-“ _body._ You finish in your head, but your mouth has other ideas. “I have to get her.”

Your gaze is trained on the marble countertop, teeth in your cheek, and the finger of one hand scrubbing at an imaginary spot of food on the table. Seconds tick by, seconds you can’t analyze because you aren’t looking at him. This feels like a spot that something gets decided on.

This is the moment that defines what it is between you and him.

Booty calls and temporary flings wouldn’t get so emotionally invested as to be moral support. To be a  crutch to lean on, a steady rock to rest upon. A guiding light house in the sea.

It feels like forever that he’s silent. Until the moment he isn’t. The second his voice rolls from his lips like a summer breeze playing among the leaves of a tree, it’s as if no time has passed at all. He’s…timeless, almost. Immune to the common rules of the universe.

“I’ll go.” He says, voice serious, but kind. He’s more than one hundred percent certain that this is going to blow up. And if not, well, he might get stabbed at the very least. But…all’s Hell that ends well, right? When you snap your head up to stare at him, he weasels a smirk onto his face. “But only if you wear that.” He points  at the shirt you’re wearing. His shirt from yesterday morning.

You squint at him, pluck the fabric. “I’ve been wearing this since I got off work yesterday.” A thinly veiled argument, one he ignores.

He crosses his arms, he never liked the idea of a woman stealing his clothes to wear around, parade in them as if it was part of their own wardrobe. But, seeing you in all the loose inches of his shirt…it does things for him.

“That makes it vintage. Congrats, babe. You’re a hipster.” He winks at you, corners of his eyes going squinty when you roll your eyes and shake your head.

“You’re something else, Blaine Debeers.” You hop off your stool, start towards your bedroom with the intention of getting a pair of pants, shoes for the day to take to the bathroom when he catches up, not even a third of the way down the hall.

Arms snaked around your stomach from behind, jaw at your temple to absentmindedly caress. All smooth skin and lingering cologne, a dash of aftershave, and something underneath it all that you label as him. Then his lips dip into your hairline, disappear, appear at your temple, in front of your ear. Your eyes slipped closed of their own accord.

“When you find out exactly what I am, you going to let me know?” he murmurs, breath warm and solid on your cheek, tinged with the scent of coffee.

“Only if it’s something good.”

He hums into your neck, nibbling at your pulse. Only if it’s something good will you tell him what he is. In that case, he supposes he’ll never know what he is in your eyes.

“Only good things.” You say, seemingly out of turn, out of your head, without thinking.

What? You’ll only say good things to him? Is that what that means?

He’s sad that you’re going to be at a loss of words then.

“Speaking of good things,” he says, sucking a faint mark under your jaw. “How about a shower?” You hum in question, and he somehow understands what you’re asking just from that small noise. “An honest to goodness shower. Scout’s honor.” He clarifies, and as if to prove his truthfulness, he unwraps himself from you.

You smile ruefully, not at all expecting him to keep his hands to himself; he couldn’t yesterday morning. At all. But, you try giving him the benefit of the doubt and don’t say anything as you reach back and take his hand. He obediently keeps contact narrowed to just that: your hands.

When you reach the bathroom, flick the lights on, he squeezes your hand briefly, most likely unintentional. You theorize it might be because he’s realized what he signed himself up for without thinking. And to test your theory, you dislodge your hand and start unbuttoning your shirt. You hear him shuffle behind you, your peripherals revealing him running a hand through his hair in the mirror.

When your shirt drops to the floor is when your theory is proven correct: he sighs painfully seeing your bare back revealed, tussled locks cascading down between your shoulder blades. Like a trooper, he toes his shoes off quietly, reaches down to pull his socks as well, pouting gaze locked on you as you shed more clothes.

“I hate myself.” Blaine says when you start to jimmy your pants off, and you laugh softly.

“Am I about to find out just how honorable you are?” you ask over your shoulder, hooking your thumbs in the waistband of your panties. He sheds his over shirt, on the way to a reply when you bend over and drag your leg coverings to the floor.

“I think we both are.” He remarks tightly, words clipped in obvious sexual frustration. He eyes you as you open the shower door and slip in, head towards the faucet and disappear from his view behind opaque glass. His v-neck shirt goes next, tossed to the floor without an ounce of care and hears you turn on the water. The faucet squeaks before the sound of water hitting the shower floor reverberates around the room, sharp and loud.

He can’t get out of the rest of his clothes fast enough, fingers fumbling, pulse climbing as if there’s a time-span limit to your existence when out of his sight. You can hear him hurrying from in the shower, and you smile briefly at his zeal. Head tipped back, you step into the spray, comfortably warm water rolling down over you in sweet torrents of bliss.

You don’t hear the moment he gets in. You feel it. It’s like gravity drags at your back with the weight of a black hole, pulling everything in you towards him: all your muscles, all your tendons, organs, bones, cells. Everything that is you is coaxed towards him as if you are on strings tied to his hands and his whims.

You’ve never felt something this strongly for another human being, not once. Nothing has ever been this intense, this encompassing. Before, there was always the thought that whoever you were with at the time would fade. The things you adored about them would be the very things you ended up leaving them for. It was always temporary, no matter how blissful the honey-moon stage was.

This…

This does not feel temporary.

You try to imagine life without him. Cut him out as if he’s a paper man pasted with glue in various aspects of your life. But, there’s something glaringly obvious when he’s gone. He takes with him the very area he was fit into.

You’re old enough now to recognize duds when you find them, to discern the possible within a relationship, to also know when there isn’t possibility. Everything about Blaine screams possibility. And you want what he’s offering.

Properly drenched, you shuffle half a step to the side so he can get under the spray and reach for your shampoo while he does. His jaw is clenched tight, eyebrows wrinkled and you can’t help but smile when he douses himself in the warm water, eyes squeezed shut.

He’s certainly holding to his word, taking an honest shower. You’re both finding out how honorable he is. More than he thought he was, and you’re not surprised at his display of willpower. Of course, if you knew how impulsive and selfish he is, you’d be commending him greatly. But you don’t know. He’s still a white knight in shining armor riding a dazzling snow-white horse into battle.

How blissful is ignorance.

You lather your shampoo, and start working it into your hair as he wipes his hands through his own hair, back to front, and blinks the water out of his eyes as he steps out of the spray.

“Oh, this is embarrassing. We both use the same shampoo,” he jokes as he snatches your shampoo off the tiny shelf built into the shower wall.

“Goodness. Now people are going to think we slept together,” you say with fake appall, and a theatric grimace.

Blaine’s laugh bounces around the small space you share. He readjusts when you edge back in under the water, running your hands through your hair to get all the shampoo out. The same process applies for the conditioner and the soap, though he chooses to use the bar of soap rather than your liquid. You suppose he draws the line at vanilla and strawberry.

He’s the last to rinse off, bubbles of soap running down his form with the cascading water. You hang a couple feet away, something on your mind. And it isn’t today, it isn’t yesterday, or the day before. It’s this moment, here, and the one in the kitchen with him at the stove. His arms wrapped around you in the hall…you think of how those moments fall so perfectly into next week, into the week after that. The months ahead.

Coffee and pancakes. Morning papers and white-collared shirts, bed temperature skin, sleepy smiles. And this moment, right here. Like it all comes full circle to this second that he runs his hands through his hair one last time, and looks up as you come closer.

There’s a moment of confusion as you cup the side of his face damp with water and dripping from his hair, a question in his clear blues that you ignore. He learns what the tenderness is about when your lips meet, wet and warm and soft. It’s instinct that has him immediately responding in kind, and getting that familiar and fond hold on the back of your neck.

Water’s beating him in the spine and the shoulder blades, but all he cares, all he focuses on is you, and kissing you senseless. Until he has the feeling of your lips memorized, the exact heat of broken breath, the feel of your hand slipping along his face, thumb in front of his ear. And the taste of you, he memorizes that too, and how many inches it takes for your bodies to touch, slicked with water and humming warm.

“Y/N,” he murmurs after pulling away a few inches, the air noticeably more humid. “What are you doing?” he asks, cautious. He’s not sure you’re emotionally in the right spot to be initiating something. He doesn’t want to move forward with this if you’re going to end up regretting it later.

“Well, I never promised to keep my hands to myself, did i?” You say, tipping your chin in an effort to capture his lips again.

Blaine blinks down at you, standing all shimmery with water droplets and red-cheeks, heavy-lidded. He’s at war with himself. But the part of him that doesn’t want to let you down wins, heroically. “Hey, we don’t have to do anything.” He says, thumb rubbing at your hairline in the back of your head near the base of your skull.

You smile up at him, something gooey and oven warm in your chest at his concern, his thoughtfulness and regard for your emotions, your well-being. It only reinforces your want for him.

“I know.” You hum and reach down taking his half-hard cock in hand. You tuck in your mind the hiss that escapes him, the way his eyelids droop in almost glare. You stroke his erection into fullness with languid motion and soft care, drinking in his choked off noises and loose jaw.

You hum again and stretch up to pepper kisses to his chin, the corners of his mouth as you go from base to tip, thumb gathering and spreading drops of precum as you descend again. The grip he has on the back of your neck tightens unconsciously. You quite like this picture of him, blissfully harmless and drowned in simple pleasure, it gives you a newfound sense of pride.

You sigh longingly, and it tears him out of his trance like you just slapped him across the face. He straps you with a fiery blue gaze that sends all the blood in your body rushing like 5 o’clock traffic. Grabs your chin and kisses you like the world is going to end tomorrow, it’s a kiss that’s worthy to put in the news.

_Man kisses woman so well, she falls into a coma. Doctors don’t know if she’ll ever wake up._

You hope to God you don’t.

Blaine snaps a hand to your thigh, curls his fingers into the relaxed muscles and hikes it up to hook around his waist. You moan into his mouth at the context clue that it is, and he smiles against you. He nibbles at your bottom lip, skates his tongue across it and you open for him, but he doesn’t slither in like you expect.

No, he stays just on the edge, lips brushing, breathing your air and you wonder why. What was the point?

He nudges you, just at the dint of your velvet channel, the head of his cock teasing at your folds, wet with arousal. You huff at him, hand sliding down to rest at the junction of his neck and shoulder, grasp tightly, fingernails close to digging in out of frustration.

Blaine nestles in a little more to tease you, the tip of his erection properly buried and you groan. The mild glare you shoot him makes him smile because the heavy blush and blown pupils, the swollen lips, it all kind of puts a damper on the scowl you have painted on your face.

And then, without warning, he slides home in one full stroke, buried to the hilt, curls mashing together. The breath squeezed out of you in a tight gasp, head falling back to let it loose like it needs room to escape. A longer run-way before takeoff.

Blaine purrs, licks a stripe up your neck to your jaw. “I think that might be my favorite sound.” Playful tongue-y kisses under your chin, to your jaw, by your ear as you ruminate on this moment of clarity, the very close revelation at hand- that once realized cannot be taken back.

You bypass it by saying, “I think this might be my favorite feeling.” You flex the muscles of your thigh resting against his hip, simultaneously jolting him a few centimeters and pulling invisible strings connected to your core.

He hisses a quiet curse into your ear, nips at your lobe and growls, “Me too.” Before properly starting the both of you towards that adrenaline-fueled horizon.

So, it goes without saying that you two end up needing another shower. Another honest to goodness shower. Though, c’mon, Y/N, take the blame. It is your fault.


	8. Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Off you go, not on an adventure, but to retrieve the body of your best friend. Nobody ever promised you were going to have a great week. Though...with Blaine here it might be salvageable. You've yet to ask him why he's stayed, why he's walking with you through this mess that is your life. You aren't brave enough to pretend to know the answer for him. You just know you're glad that he's here. You also aren't brave enough to admit to yourself why you're so happy he's with you. The two of you really need a strong dose of self-awareness.

There's a soft question of whose car to take, simply for the matter of convenience involved. Would it be easier to go in your car, his? But Blaine is thinking along a different route. Are you going to be okay to drive after the morgue? How hard is seeing Charlie's body going to hit you?

You're not driving. He has that decision set in stone, and aids its firm standpoint with that gentleman-esque attitude and ready-to-help character, insisting with kind words and gentle rebuttals any argument you can come up with.

Besides, he likes you in the passenger seat of his car. It feels right for you to sit there next to him, chatting about whatever, sneaking glances at him, using him as a buffer for the horridness ahead. It feels...official. Which is stupid.

It's so stupid. To be doing this. To be getting any kind of involved with you. Worry gnarls in his stomach like a festering ball of poison and makes his jaw tingle. It's an unspeakable kind of stupid to be going to the morgue, with you, while you wear his shirt and he opens the car door for you. It's dangerous to walk into the building being who he is; who he really is.

It's all kinds of nerve-wracking to open the doors leading down to the morgue he's more than familiar with. He's nervous, but he hides from it behind your grief. He bolsters your feelings far ahead of his own, and he wishes he could say that it's from genuine care, but he's irrevocably selfish. He just wears and uses it well enough that he can pretend it's something else.

He's first through the door, and takes a few steps before he realizes you're halted at the top of the stairs. He looks up at you as you stand with a hand braced on the door and teeth in your bottom lip, a crease between your eyebrows born from dreaded hesitation.

Blaine idly wonders what it feels like exactly to be in the position you're in, to be going to a morgue for the body of someone you deeply love. To have a suffered a loss so encased in years and wonderful memories...he can perhaps scratch the surface of that feeling with the loss of his grandpa. Perhaps.

He does something stupid. He extends his hand to you as if he's a bridge with which you can cross over the river of grief and pain without any consequence. He's a type of giddy when you move away from the door and slip your hand into his, slightly clammy from emotion. As if he's the one struggling with the situation, he squeezes tightly, slides his fingers between yours and starts down the stairs, feeling as if there's a firing squad waiting for him at the bottom.

And in a sense, he's right.

Because when the two of you hit the bottom landing, he's immediately caught in the hyper-judgmental, holier-than-thou, if-looks-could-kill stare of Olivia Moore as if she knew immediately when he'd be coming down the stairs. As if she were forewarned of this moment and had been preparing for hours to pin him with a glare at the precise moment he showed his face.

Of course that could just be everything that he's worrying about talking.

Her heated stare snaps down to your interlocked hands for the briefest of moments before something like horror and disgust alters her features. For your sake, she pushes it all to the back burner and pulls another emotion up the roster: sympathy.

Throwing a crisp white sheet over the body she's in the middle of examining, she hurries around the table, coaxing off her latex gloves while she does. "Y/N." She says in greeting, mild surprise, and stops near the halfway point of the stairs and the examining table.

You nod stiffly. Where did all the words go, what happened to your vocabulary? You take a cursory glance around the room, all the lockers in the wall for dead bodies and you wonder which one Charlie is in. And then you wonder where the nearest trashcan is because you think you might get sick.

Liv doesn't remark on your silence, seems to expect it actually. "She's this way, Y/N, if you're ready." Liv says with a limp and general gesture to the right of her. On the left wall, then.

You blink a few times, swallow hard. If you're ready, she said. You could never be ready for this moment. You aren't ready. But maybe that's the point, if you wait until you're ready, you'll never do anything. Best just to get this over with: stalling isn't going to help anyone. Least of all you.

"Okay," you say, voice steady against all the emotion roiling inside you like a violent storm at sea. You aren't sure if there's another dam ready to break, or if you're just processing a little late, accepting slowly what is undeniable. Maybe it's a front, or maybe it's naivety. Either way- whatever it is -it doesn't stop you from taking that first step, and it doesn't crumble when Liv leads the way to Charlie's body.

Speaking of first steps, you take yours and come up short when the tether that is your and Blaine's hands is drawn taut. You swivel half-way and regard him curiously.

He looks uncomfortable, uncertain. "Do you want me to..." He nods vaguely towards Liv and the wall of lockers. One of which Charlie is in.

You don't know if he's asking because the situation is macabre, if this is suddenly too much for him to handle- if this mess that has become your life is too much work -or if he's being considerate and giving you a chance to say goodbye to Charlie on your own. It's all ambiguous and hidden behind soft sky-blues, and bright blond eyebrows angled in such concern.

"Would you?" you ask, and you aren't sure if it's an honest question, a plea, a dare or what, but he makes a decision about it for the both of you. _He_ pulls you along, his grip tighter with conviction, with care, perhaps a dire need to comfort. You follow quickly, squeezing his hand in way of acknowledgement and thank-you.

Unknown to you, a pair of eyes watched the exchange with rapt interest and astounded confusion, more than ample suspicion. The office has always been Ravi's favorite vantage point in the morgue and for good reason. It's never let him down.

The thought crosses his mind that he's somewhat like a teenager back in high-school, lingering near his locker to lament and curse the cement-strength relationship of the head jock and cheer captain- which he was severely crushing over- only to gossip later to whoever would listen. It flits across the fore-front of his mind like a bird passes a window, with hardly a moment to register and download the fleeting visual.

So, maybe he should be embarrassed. But he isn't. _Can't feel shame if you don't have pride,_ he muses. _Oh wait. I might be one of the most prideful people I know._

Your footsteps seem so loud in your ears, the distance illogically long and the time too short. Liv is slowing down, picking a door and you want to stop. You do...almost. Your hesitation yanks Blaine's arm, and he flashes you a sympathetic/apologetic look. And tugs you after him, strength unyielding. Uncompromising in this decision to get you to Charlie asap.

Like a band-aid.

Do it quick like a band-aid because- you think he knows that if you take your time on this you'll never get it over with. He's forcing you to face the worst of life with an iron-grip and sure footsteps. He's not pushing you into it: he's leading you into it with his hand in yours, understanding about the harsh hold and biting nails you're subjecting him to without so much as a wince.

He's quiet when Liv rolls out the table, masterfully ignoring the questioning look in her eye, the harsh judgement, the outright disgust and disapproval written all over her face. All he's focused on is you in his peripherals, all he's listening for is the start of your tears, looking for a trembling lip, waiting for your hand to start shaking in his own.

He's not concerned about Liv right now. About what she might do, what she might say. He's not concerned with anything or anyone unless it's you. Funny how fast priorities can change. 

You look down at her, still and pale, unmoving, quiet. Her usually stylishly curled red hair is limp and boring, though it retains her striking color even in death. The freckles dotting her nose and cheeks have paled with her skin, and look now more like mistakes rather than the aesthetic gold card they are. All her features are lax and empty, a stark contrast to how you're used to seeing her: eyes intense with either amusement or determination, glossy pink lips spread into a smile, perfect teeth on display, fiery-red tendrils of her silky hair framing her face.

Her neck and ears are bare of jewelry, usually decorated with quaint studs or pearls. And the sheet that covers her from collar-bone down is wrong. Wrong in color, material, pattern. She should be wearing one her floral print flax dresses, hugging her slim- nearly perfect -form.

You don't ask about her cause of death. It wouldn't do anything but help you to agonize over her death. You're not under the illusion that you can be a vigilante and get justice for her, you'll leave that up to the authorities. You know that she wouldn't want you risking yourself in any way for her. Especially considering the situation.

"Y/N?"

You drag your gaze up, away from Charlie and find Liv on the other side. She hadn't moved, but then- the entire room just seemed to have dissolved away when you looked at Charlie.

Her eyes are soft with sympathy and the desire to comfort. She holds a small plastic bag out to you, "They were in evidence, but I pulled some strings when we couldn't get any leads off them."

You take it with your free hand, brow slightly wrinkled in confusion and oncoming emotion. You peer into the plastic, hackles raised.

It's all the jewelry she was wearing at the time of her death. Her shining diamond studs catching light, her favorite necklace of a multi-faceted stone clasped in glimmering silver. Her rings jingle against all the other metal at the bottom of the bag. Most of them are simple: plain, thin rings of silver or rose-gold, no jewels beset in them. Except one: Nothing fancy, but something that would catch attention compared to other rings.

A thick band of sterling gold with a vein of silver running through the middle is the base for three stones. Aquamarine, of pear-shaped cut, set in place with prongs.

This one you recognize distinctly. You had spent an entire weekend tracking it down before her birthday, trying to find something that was uniquely her, something you knew she'd love. You wanted to get a piece of jewelry that featured her birthstone, but you didn't want something that would break the bank. She'd have chewed your ear off for spending a small fortune on her.

This was by far her favorite present. She never took it off, not once since you'd given it to her more than five years ago.

Tears run down your face before you can even register the sting in your eyelids, before you notice the drop in your mood.

You open your mouth to thank Liv, but it doesn't move. You're just stuck staring at Charlie's ring, crying. It's too much at once. You shouldn't have come the day after learning she was dead. You bolt, not giving anyone a chance to say anything, or offer comfort. You tear up the stairs without a backwards glance and let the slam of the doors speak for you.

Blaine stares after you, jaw tight, feeling guilty about forcing you this far. He should have let you decide when you were ready.

"What the Hell are you doing with her?" Liv hisses at him, spitting venom like a snake and Blaine regards her dully.

"Not to point out the obvious, but that's none of your business." He drawls, glances down at Charlie. This woman he can't remember ever meeting. He draws the sheet over her face.

She scoffs, folds her arms and glares up at him. "What are you using her for? She isn't rich, doesn't have powerful parents, no connections to speak of-" she cuts herself off to let him explain, and also to intensify her stare because he looks bored to death.

He shrugs. "Like I said: none of your business." Blaine drops his hands into his jacket pockets, refrains from looking at the stairs. He wants to go after you, but he's being interrogated at the moment.

Liv studies him, looking for a motive he's not giving her. When she can't find anything, she talks. Though it isn't her tongue that makes words. "You need to stay away from her; she's got her whole life ahead of her and you're going to ruin it."

Blaine's back stiffens straight, a tick in his jaw pops. "Listen, Casper. You're riding her best friend's brain right now, so while it seems like you have the right..." he narrows his eyes, and all of a sudden Liv remembers she's talking to a murdering megalomaniac with a shattered moral compass.

"You don't." he bites, waspish and mean. It feels degrees colder in the morgue than it was a few seconds ago. "Now, paperwork to get her out of here." He snaps his fingers, points down at Charlie underneath the sheet.

"Why?" Liv asks, suspicious.

"I run a funeral home. Figure it out." He utters condescendingly, and legs it to the office where Ravi is hanging out. Liv glowers at his back, temper flared and fanned like a bonfire.

"Here for a check-up, Doc. Make it snappy if you would." Is his entrance into the tiny office space. Ravi looks immediately put-off,

"Of course. Anything I else I can do? Coffee, full breakfast, massage?"

"Tempting as the last one is," Blaine banters as Ravi gets up to rummage around for everything he needs. "I'm on a tight schedule."

As per Blaine's brusque request, Ravi makes the examination quick and finishes up when Liv marches through the door with a manila folder in hand. Instead of handing it over, she literally slaps it into his chest and doesn't wait for him to grab it before she's stomping back out.

Blaine flips through folder, checking over everything, hardly affected by Liv's attitude. He's almost glad Charlie isn't around. There's no way he'd be able to get close to you if the red-head was alive. Nary a thank-you about the papers or the check-up, he leaves.

He is getting curious about Charlie. About the very fact that he met her and can't remember, no matter how hard he tries. But brain-visions don't lie. He might end up looking into all of this. At very least, to get Liv off his back.

Does he have room on his plate for that? Not really. What with his business growing, the number of zombies in Seattle increasing day-by-day, his meetings with Peyton, his very fragile 'health condition', keeping you in the dark about all his crimes...

He's full up on new endeavors.

Ah, what the Hell. He'll make it work somehow.

The air outside is humid from the earlier rain, from the rising temperature. Seems like it might be hot today. Even so, when he ducks into the car, and reaches across to grab your hand your skin is chilly. You don't look at him, not yet. Not until you wipe your tear-dampened cheeks with your other hand.

"Sorry about leaving you stranded back there." You apologize, waving your hand at the station.

He shakes his head. "No apology needed. How are you feeling?" He tucks the folder between his seat and the center console, breaking eye contact for it, and two things hit you.

One: he took the time to get paperwork for Charlie's relocation without you asking him to, when it isn't even his responsibility. Two: he's less familiar with his car than he is with your kitchen. It strikes a chord in you, the fact that he's so easily memorized your kitchen, as if he's spent countless hours in it.

"I don't know." You want to say something to him: another apology for making him have to deal with you. With all of this. But the words won't come, and he doesn't seem vexed about any of it.

Blaine nods in response, even though he's sure you're not telling the truth. He won't push you. He already did that once. He turns the engine, puts the car in drive and sets off without an explanation.

At first you think he's taking you back home. But the streets don't look familiar, and the shops are ones you've never seen before. He isn't using a GPS so you can't spy the destination. After a while, the mystery becomes too much.

"Where are we going?"

He flickers his pretty blues over, meets your curious gaze and inches a smile."A café." He informs you, and smiles wider when you continue to stare at him, impatient for more of an answer. "Told you there was a café I wanted to take you to, buttercup."

He did?

He catches your puzzled expression and chuckles. "Well, I guess it'll just be a surprise then, since someone wasn't listening." He squeezes your hand, hums some song you don't recognize.

You tear your gaze away from him, and watch the city fly by your window, keeping an eye out for this café he's surprising you with.

Liv and Blaine are certain that Charlie would not approve of him. You, however, you think she'd be over the moon for you if she had the chance to meet Blaine, to know all the sweet and considerate things he's done for you since you met him.

Then again, you hardly know him. So, your vote doesn't mean much, Y/N.

Sure won't stop you from casting your ballot though.

The café is eye-catching, double-take worthy quaint and quiet as it is. It's distinct from the grey of the city with the help of its redbrick exterior, green shuttered windows with black panes. A cloth awning hangs over most of the outdoor patio, the soft green and creamy beige of the sunshade compliment the aesthetic of the small building. A wrought iron fence of midnight black cages in the area of the patio, it creates a rectangle outside the entrance that sneaks into a fraction of the sidewalk.

The tables are circular wood, held into place by poles secured into the concrete, in the center of the tables are tiny caddies for salt and pepper, sugar, etc. They also house softly glowing lights situated inside old fashioned lanterns, most likely battery-powered.

Underneath every window of the two-story building are flower boxes: made of wood and overflowing with bright, happy little flowers of all colors: deep purple, calm salmon, sunshiny yellow, pastel blue, to name a few. Underneath the boxes of the first-floor windows morning glories have been given free reign to grow where they please.

You don't realize you're gaping until Blaine says something.

"I'm taking your speechlessness as a good sign." He has a hand on the headrest of your seat, chin tipped smugly.

"It's...this place is-" you aimlessly gesture with your hands, at a loss of words and he smirks at you.

"I like how easy you are to impress." He regards you thoughtfully, appraising you in subtle amusement. He takes your huff of mock insult with a grain of salt and says, "You feeling the sunshine today, buttercup?"

You glance at the ambience of casual leisure that cloaks the patio like a sweet haze of honey-colored fog, and listen to it call you. It's so bright and open, and welcoming, and so far removed from the doldrums of the city and its pollution: auditory, visual, olfactory- you'd be mad not to say yes.

You're out of the car with your sight set on a corner table near a section of fence stolen by morning glories and soft pink flowers you don't know the name of. Blaine's laugh reaches your ears on a tune of aloofness and vibrancy. You have to open a gate on your way in, and it squeaks quietly, like a greeting to you.

You hurry to sit down, spirits desperate to lift. It's a willing thought that if you become part of this area, you'll be just as jubilant and careless, unaffected by today's cares and worries. The chair is high-backed, and just like the fence it's iron. Though the metal spirals and twists tastefully to offer coverage and comfort for your back.

Properly inside the patio now, you take more time admiring the area and all its finer details, cute little enhancements to the décor that make you smile.

And Blaine takes his time admiring you, admiring your zeal for the simple things, the child-like awe you have for everything. It's very apparent that you desire to live more than you have, despite the practicality of your apartment, your humble wardrobe, your quaint job. Each thing is like a reminder, or a tally on a board, a challenge slowly adding up that you can't ignore. One you'll have to rise up to.

He wonders if he's a tally for you?

When you finally see all you can see, you find him staring at you, leaned back in his seat with his arms folded over his chest and a smirk on his lips. "W-what?" you ask, feeling a little embarrassed that he's watched you ogle this café like a child in a candy store.

He chuckles and shakes his head, sits up straight and throws his gaze this way and that, trying to see through your eyes. But he finds nothing wondrous, nothing awe-inspiring, and that makes him admire you more.

The smirk on his face dwindles down to a soft smile, and he scoops up your hand laying on the table, ignoring the faint blush on your face. You're easy to impress, easy to embarrass. You're too much fun for him.

He runs his thumb over the back of your fingers, watches himself do it, his mind spiraling to a different time. A post-it, a stamp of a visual and a feeling: his thumb tracing the plump, soft shape of your pink lips, shined and glistening from a multitude of kisses. He sighs,

"You really have no idea..." he flickers his suddenly serious eyes up to you, a warmth there making your bones hum, but there's something heavy behind the sweetness and it makes you...curious. He looks like he wants to continue his sentence, doesn't get that far because his phone rings, stopping his words short.

His eyes tighten in the corners at the sound of his ringtone, and ponder if it's because of the simple interruption, or if it's something deeper. Lately, it seems to you that his job is a main point of contention in his life. He's never happy when it comes to his work, there's no passion there. More often than not, when his phone rings, he bleeds dread and agitation.

Nevertheless, Blaine takes the call. Right where he is, without apology, without getting up and leaving ear-shot. He snaps his irritation in a bear trap with the help of your hand that he busies himself with. Massaging each knuckle, dipping between them, comparing the length of your fingers to his- palm to palm -all while emergencies are reported to him on an anxious, fed-up tone through the small speaker of his phone.

He gives bland orders, and lamentations about his attendance, no explanation. No conscience. Of course, he keeps everything clandestine, uses terms that apply to his funeral business. He's starting to realize that may be the one thing he cares about: keeping you blind to his true identity.

An eternity later, his phone is shoved back into an interior pocket of his suit jacket and he's observing you again with his full attention, and those ever-changing blues steadied on you like a bird of prey. It's a feeling you relish but all at once shy away from.

No one's ever looked at you the way Blaine does.

Little do you know, he's thinking the very same thing about you.

No one has ever looked at him like you do.

It tears him apart to realize it. Because he never wants you to stop.

And you when you realize it...it makes your stomach do flops and your heart run marathons.

"So, what's good here?" you ask quietly as a few bees buzz behind you on the petals of flowers.

Blaine smiles, his mood lifted a few degrees and begins to rattle off their menu, appraising the finer things and warning you away from the questionable items, the whole time maintaining his grip on your hand. Reluctant to let go, even for a second.

And you have no complaints about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I've missed this story. So very much. My plans for this one are...marvelous. I have to smile about the storyline. Gotta. Ugh, You/Blaine= feels for the author. Seriously, can't handle it. Sorry about the wait. As I've explained elsewhere I'm in the middle of moving so I don't have a lot of time to write. But I made time for it today. Stay lovely, lovelies.


	9. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You aren't sure what you expected, really. You're only surprised it's taken him this long to show up. A funeral looms in the future, your past hangs over you, and in the present you cling to Blaine. But only after he shows you how much you need him. You can't believe you forgot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've no words. I'm struggling, people. The writer's block is SO REAL right now. But I tried. I tried for those dedicated few. <3

The next few days are spent handling the specifics of Charlie’s funeral. Or more accurately, you trying to handle the specifics. Every time you think about it you stop short of anything resembling productive and merely stare at the paperwork with the ridiculous hope that it will complete itself.

Wine has been a constant addition to all your meals, and it’s been the main course for meals you skip. And you skip a lot of meals. Charlie’s jewelry has found a new home in the junk drawer of your kitchen, and the lights haven’t been on in there since you picked her body up four days ago.

Right now, her body is at Shady Plots being prepped for her funeral which you can’t seem to coordinate. You don’t know who to tell… _how_ to say that she’s dead.

You can’t find the time, the energy to wear something that isn’t yoga-appropriate- but if you’re being transparent by now you’re wandering into People of Wal-Mart aesthetic because you haven’t changed in two days, and your hair is torn between falling out of the bun its in and staying in the confines of its hairband.

Blaine has sent you chipper texts every hour, on the hour, for the past three days and left your voicemail box full of snarky, sultry, charming messages that you would undoubtedly- under different circumstances -make you blush and squeal.

As it is though, the distance from him has numbed you and you just want to wallow in the silence, the indecision, the soul-wrenching reluctance of anything relating to Charlie, and funeral, and putting her in the ground.

Your phone chimes again, and you rub your eyes in exhaustion.

You know without looking that it’s Blaine.

It chimes again, and with a grimace you get up, leaving the paperwork, your phone, the wine, and the ballpoint pen that’s been sitting on your coffee table for twelve hours, behind you.

You tug your hair out of its bun and trudge your way into your bathroom, leaving the door open, and the lights off. It’s on automatic that you strip down and step into the shower, and your hand turns the water on.

There’s no reaction from you as you step into the freezing cold spray.

Eyes closed, water roaring in your ears, you slip into a peacefulness you haven’t felt in five days.

_“Okay, what about this?” Charlie tilts the wine bottle, pouring more into your glass which you just emptied not even a moment ago. You shoot her a warning look, that she ignores. “We go to this art gala, and I wing-man you.”_

_You shake your head, “God, no. No, Charlie.”_

_She points the neck of the bottle at you. “What? No? Why no?” She slaps a hand over her heart and mocks offence, “I am a great wing-man.”_

_You roll your eyes and take a sip of your wine, “Do I need to remind you about my high-school boyfriend? Which I would have never dated had you not so skillfully wing-manned for me.”_

_That gets her quiet for a few moments, but only a few. “I would like to argue that I have matured in my abilities as your wingman, and I will never again set you up with a dud.”_

_You hum and divert your attention to the TV where a very muscular, and very shirtless Australian actor is meandering around a ‘lab’, and twirling a pair of headphones in simplistic curiosity._

_You point. “You successfully wingman, and land me a boyfriend that looks that,” your eyebrows shoot up and you exhale heavily, “And we are all settled, Charlie.”_

_She snickers and bites her lip, “Y/N, I love you, but if I see a man like that…”_

_Now you mock being hurt, “Oh, I see how it is.”_

_She wrestles a pillow from behind her back and throws it at you, “No, no. Chicks before dicks. I wouldn’t get in the way if some guy swept you off your feet…” She glances at the TV, “Or if you drooled yourself stupid over some living wall of muscle.”_

_You smile brightly, “Just want you to know, I would return the favor if you needed wingmanning. But you’re a red-haired goddess-”_

_“You kind of do return the favor, in a backwards kind of way.” She frowns contemplatively, eluding to all the times you’ve pretended to be ‘with’ her to shoo off less than desirable guys that seem to orbit around her._

_She can’t go anywhere without turning heads._

_“Hm. Yin and Yang.”_

_Charlie falls silent, watches the film for a good five minutes and watches you drain your glass in her peripherals. “But, the art gallery. You are going to go, right?”_

_You tuck your legs underneath you on the couch, and tilt your head towards her, your eyes still on the screen, “Like I’m going to say no to you.”_

That night at the gala had been refreshing, it had been long, and filled with laughter and sweet rosé, and contemplation, appreciation. And in some cases, confusion. Suffice it to say: art can be weird, sometimes.

Life…can be weird sometimes.

There’s a clatter from the kitchen, the rustling of…something, and you turn your head, staring through the open door of the shower, straining your ears. You’d turn off the water but you’ve watched too many horror flicks and you’ve the idea that if you’re being robbed, well, turning off the water would be just as good as calling out _Hello, who’s there?_

Footsteps echo down the hallway, and the only thought to cross your mind is: of course I’m about to be murdered in the middle of a shower.

Funny thing is, you remember locking your door.

Suddenly, a tan hand appears in the middle of the doorway, your phone in clutch and it starts ringing. Your screen says “Blaine 


	10. Waiting Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having problems with the site again. So forgive the choppiness of the story. Everything isn't showing up as I copy and paste it. Soooo....*sighs*

” and Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones blares from the phone’s speaker.

You furrow your brow, and wonder just what-

“Two things,” comes a very familiar voice and you just about deflate in the shower from sheer relief.

“No, no, pretty sure I have three things I want to say,” Blaine muses as he fully emerges from the hallway and leans on the doorjamb. The phone is still ringing in his hand, and it’s the only light source in the room. “The first is that I more than approve of my assigned ringtone,”

Of course he does.

You turn back to the faucet, and grab your loofa secured around the handle. You were just planning on standing in the spray until your skin went numb but now that you have an audience you have to at least pretend you aren’t slipping.

“The second is I could get used to _this_ when I come over- albeit, mood lighting could use a little work,” He eyes you sharply as you lather your loofa. He flicks the light on, and steps in, watching- not with lecherous interest but more…calculated worry -as you limply drag the loofa across your collarbone, your eyes dim, locked on the intersection of the shower wall and door.

“The third thing is that I can’t exactly get used to-” he hangs up on himself from your phone, and then folds his arms over his chest. “that.” He finishes, a line between his brow as he settles back against your counter.

“Nothing personal,” You say, almost wincing at the sound of your voice after not using it for anything except crying for four days. “I’ve been hanging up on everyone.”

“Yeah…was kind of hoping I didn’t fit anywhere in that generality.” Blaine mutters, and says nothing when you duck underneath the ice-cold downpour. He’s noticed there isn’t any steam, and he’s noticed the dark circles under your eyes, and the darkness of the apartment.

The wineglasses in the sink, the wine bottles in the trash. It all tells a story, and Blaine thinks he knows how it ends. He isn’t in a hurry to know if he’s right.

The water cuts off, abruptly and without your interference. You open your eyes to find Blaine’s hand on the faucet, white knuckled and stiff.

Water drips down your face, and drenched hair sticks to your back like thick velvet curtains, and your eyes sting from the chlorine in the water. You don’t shiver. You don’t shake.

“Is there a fourth?”

Blaine flattens his lips, but shifts a little closer in the doorway of the shower, and when you feel the warmth of his begin to lick at your skin- _that’s_ when a tiny tremble seizes your muscles.

“Fourth?” Blaine cocks his head, aiming to meet your eyes, but he needn’t have tried because you do of your own accord.

“A fourth thing you want to say…”

Blaine’s eyes drop for a second but when he looks at you again there’s a spark. “Move.”

You blink at him incredulously. “What?”

He smirks and shrugs out of his leather jacket. “I remember exactly how small your shower is,” his t-shirt is next, arms pulled long, stretched over his head, abdominal muscles peeking out underneath his tan skin to say hello.

He tosses his shirt into the pile of your own clothes, and pops the button on his jeans, “Make some room for me, babe.”

You literally can’t help the smile that stretches your lips. “That’s innuendo if I’ve ever heard it.”

Blaine snorts, and while he sheds his jeans and kicks off his shoes mid-shimmy, you squeeze a hefty amount of water out of your hair.

He’s hardly in before you reach for the faucet, and then his hand is on top of yours and he’s sliding into the shower, holding your gaze with eyes so heavy they could sink a ship. He’s on your toes, staring down at you from a mere three inches away, and his hand is so tight on yours.

“What..?” is all you can think to murmur as he shuffles closer and your back meets the shower wall. It chills your shoulder blades, a sharp contrast to the heat of Blaine in front of you, the smooth, dry warmth of his arm wrapping around your lower back.

“Let _me_ warm you up, buttercup.” He says, and lays his forehead against yours, his voice like melted chocolate.

You don’t even realize your eyes have closed, not until he pulls you flush against him, until his other hand grabs your jaw and turns your head so he can nibble, lick, and kiss all sorts of sounds from your throat. Your eyes flutter open to view the ceiling, but they struggle to stay open. Blaine’s warm tongue, hot breath, soft lips, and the occasional smirk against your skin is like a siren song for your eyelids to fall.

The pull on your hip, bone cradled in a firm palm, spine curving, muscles jumping and stretching, nails digging into a toned back, a hardness pressing suggestively at the crux of your thighs,

“ _God- Blaine…_ ” you moan wantonly, teeth piercing your lower lip like a vice, and Blaine pops his head up.

“There she is.” He purrs, eyes dark as they bore into your own, as they flicker to your lips, and he smirks at the haze in your irises, but more-so the fire in them. “Knew she was in there, somewhere.” He ponders quietly, watches your tongue whet your lips…

“What are you talking about?” you half don’t care, but if he can work out his thoughts maybe he’ll fuck you up the shower wall sooner.

“There’s this girl I’ve been trying to reach for a few days,” Blaine runs his hand over your hip, down your thigh, back up, follows his hand with his eyes and continues talking softly, “She usually dissolves into a puddle over the phone when I talk to her,”

“Seduce her, you mean,” you interrupt shortly, and coast your hands up the expanse of his chest, feeling his hardened manhood twitch between your bodies, you lace your hands behind his neck. He plays it off effortlessly,

“But she’s ignoring me like a dead-line for work, so I thought I’d drop by,” his eyes rake their way up your form, fiery, molten. “She’s…vibrant, is the word, I think. She’s like the sun in summer…usually.”

Now your teeth are in your lip for a different reason entirely. He’s talking about you, and to hear him describe you so succinctly, so certainly…to hear the way you were, as opposed to what you are now…

“But now she’s quiet, and somber, and she’s tough, and she’s hiding from me-”

“I’m- I’m not.” You protest weakly, your hands shaking just the slightest bit.

“Not what?” Blaine asks you, tone edged, but quiet. The arm he has around your back loops tighter and you have practically no room, nowhere to run. “Hm?”

You want to think he’s being mean, you really do, because then your evasive behavior would be justified, but you know he’s here for a different reason.

“I’m- not hiding.” You mutter almost petulantly, gaze locked on his collar-bone with the determination of a pouting child.

“Prove it,” he dares you, just a tad sharply, breath hitting your lips like a hiss of steam. He feels your interlocked hands begin to tremble, and he readjusts. The hand on your hip rises, fingertips skimming your side, “Look at me.”

A simple enough request, really. Up, his hand goes, and your eyes mimic. They stumble up his throat, over the jolt of his Adam’s apple, his sharp chin- his fingertips tease the curve of a breast…they come back for the briefest of caresses and then carry on.

His lips, parted in anticipation, just the barest shade of red, a little swollen, you want to kiss him. But you don’t. Up, his hand goes, and your eyes mimic.

You’re barely walking the edge of peripheral vision you’re so close to locking eyes.

And suddenly you’re there. And he’s riveted, enthralled, and you’re a moth in a web.

And you chicken out because his gorgeous blues are so open, and they hold you, and that scares you. You drop your gaze hastily, a ball of tight-knit emotions constricting your throat, and a warm, slightly calloused palm finds your jaw.

“Mm-mm,” he hums soothingly, and you’re not sure how he does it, how he goes from hard and firm and unrebukable, irresistible- to welcoming and soft, and persuasive, but he does. He tilts your head back, and like gravity your eyes meet again, and he says, gentle and sugar-sweet, “Look at me.”

You don’t know why it’s so difficult, but it’s like he can read your mind, it’s as if he strips you bare and sees the parts of you that you try so hard to hide, even from yourself. He sought you out, despite the cold shoulder you gave him. He doesn’t have to be here, he doesn’t have to be with you.

But he is. In your shower, giving you no space to run and hide. He’s here, immovable, and patient, and he’s asking for nothing.

And he _knows_ what this is all about, and somehow, that makes it heart-wrenching.

Your hands quake, your bottom lip starts to tremble and your eyes slip closed.

“No, no. Look at me,” his voice urges you, so docile and pleading, and his nose bumps yours. “I’ve got you, Y/N. You just gotta trust me.”

And it shakes you to the core, the bold truth: “I do.” It’s irrational, but dammit if it isn’t true.

When your eyelids flutter back, and he’s there with understanding and kindness, and something so accepting but foreign to you, you don’t fight the dampness that springs up on your lower eyelids. The smile he gives you is melancholy, but it’s coated with relief.

Blaine takes a moment to reach beside him for the faucet, turns it on, all the while holding your watery gaze. The first tear that spills over is caught by the webbing of his thumb and index finger, and the first little sob out of your throat is joined by the quietest of grunts from him, as if he too is in pain. And that’s so wholesome in the moment, that the next whimper out of you is because of it.

How in seven Hell’s did you land this guy?

“You don’t have to hold it, buttercup. I’ve gotcha. Let go.”

What he doesn’t seem to understand is that’s all you’ve done, ever since you first learned. All you want is to stop, stop crying, stop your downward spiral into depression and alcoholism. You want-

“Blaine.” Oh, how pitiful you sound.

He doesn’t respond verbally, only physically. He ushers you, still pressed along his body, underneath the now warm water, careful to avoid accidently drowning you. He gets the brunt of the water, broad and tall as he is, but it runs over him, and sneaks between your bodies.

“Talk to me,” he requests, quite out of the blue, and you search his eyes for deceit, search for authenticity. It’s there in spades. The earnestness, that is.

“Wh- what do you-” damn, you are so eloquent when you’re sad.

He gets it. “What can I do for you?”

Incredulous, that’s what you are. What can he do? What can’t he do? He’s already done everything and then some.

“Can you just…” your eyes flit to his lips, shining from him having licked them not two moments ago, and you might damn near lose your mind if he doesn’t- “Kiss me. Please.”

Blaine blinks in guarded surprise. “I-”

You stand on tip-toes, and only when his mouth remains out of your reach do you realize that he’s straightened.

His lips flatten to a straight line, and as tempted as he is, he says, “Later. Scout’s honor,” not unkindly, but somehow you don’t think he’s made a promise to you. “I did bring food, so here’s the plan,” he grabs the bottle of shampoo off the shelf and waddles it mid-air. “Shower, food, paperwork, and then I’ll kiss you-”

You’re pouting, you know you are, because he smirks like a cat with cream, and you don’t argue. Not right now at least.

“Alright, but I’m tacking interest on that kiss,” You tell him, forcing a weak smile.

“Crafty. I approve.”

He’s good. He’s so good. Washing your hair with careful hands, rubbing your scalp with strong fingers, scratching occasionally so he can watch you arch your spine for the sensation. True, he didn’t promise to be a perfect gentleman, but…well, there’s interest on that kiss he’s keeping, so. Yeah.

You smell like vanilla, and strawberries and you feel like you’re trudging through the haze of the crash of a caffeine high. And you don’t remember the segue of getting dressed, but you are, and you’re at the kitchen bar sitting on a stool watching Blaine bumble around your kitchen, dumping the Chinese take-out on plates to warm up in the microwave.

The lights are on, and your hair is dripping wet. His is dry, and sticking up in all kinds of wacky directions. He shoots glances at you, while he’s busy doing this and that, and it’s so…carefully intimate. Solely because you’re doing the same.

You’re looking for the way he drags fingertips on any surface he passes, trickling like water. You watch the calculating spark in his eyes as he contemplates things behind his striking baby-blues. You wait for the roll of his shoulders, the quiver of soft cotton as he does it.

Mostly, you wait for his eyes to catch you.

He’s quiet, thinking hard if the stiff jaw is any indication.

He looks at you, and it’s all the lapse in his willpower needed to drive him around the counter to you.

Hands in your wet hair, your own at his hips, grabbing and holding for dear life as he kisses you hard. Four days of no texts, of no calls, four days of worry that have made him sick to his stomach. It all pours out in desperation as he nips, and nibbles until your mouth is open in a gasp and then he claims your mouth.

Ravenous, harsh, fevered. All these words apply to the way he kisses you, the way in which he shortens your breath and makes your pulse race. He gets you tight, and cramped, and unable to focus on anything that isn’t him. The edge of the counter underneath your shoulder doesn’t filter, the kink in your neck from the angle doesn’t matter.

What does matter is his waist between your thighs, the heat of him leaking through your sweater making your nipples harden to attention, his hand that curls into a fist, unintentionally tugging on your scalp.

But the growl that tears out of him makes you think it wasn’t exactly accidental.

Blaine breaks away, breath puffing in little pants and he half glowers down at you. “God damn, you make me weak.”

A squeak gets stuck in your throat, and you avert your gaze when heat creeps across your cheeks. Blaine brushes a thumb over the warm skin. “Can you promise me something, sweetheart?” Blaine peers at you intensely, waiting with a false sense of patience.

“What?” your lips are tingling as blood flows back into them.

“Don’t make me go that long without you ever again.” His thumb trails down, tracing the plumpness of your kiss-swollen lips. His irises get a little thinner.

“Mm…I promise.” You swear genuinely, and pucker your lips against the pad of his thumb.

Blaine’s lips part faintly, and you watch as he snaps his mouth shut and swallows thickly. “You- you are something.”

He drops a kiss onto your forehead and moves away before he can get drawn back in. You hadn’t heard it but microwave had gone off. Blaine, ever the planner, stands on the other side of the counter and eats his Chinese, eyeing you warily as if you’re some wild animal prepared to strike when his guard is done. You think it’s more accurate the other way around.

Talk is sparse, and limited to the weather, the ridiculous traffic, and new movies. It’s normal. Domestic. And you try to ignore just how domestic it is: the eating dinner, the simple chit-chat, the cleanup after. You washing, Blaine drying the dishes and putting the ones in the drainer away.

And there’s nothing to do after he closes the cabinet except dawdle, and pretend the counters need wiped down, which they honestly probably do. Cleaning hasn’t been your main objective for close to a week.

Hands on your hips give you pause, stop you cold because you know he knows what you’re doing. His breath hits the back of your neck, his lips follow a second later. You tilt your head, coaxing more from him wordlessly, but he pulls away, the sneaky bastard.

Those hands, those strong hands, detour around and grip the edge of the counter, and his voice is right at your ear. “We can do the paperwork over there, or I can bring it over here,” Soft, volume wise. Tone however, that’s firm and no-nonsense. “Either way, it’s getting done tonight.”

You nod numbly, as close as you’ll get to surrender, and Blaine presses a kiss to your ear.

The walk to the couch feels like a million years, but somehow it’s only ten steps and then that stupid manila folder is staring at you in smugness. Blaine says nothing about the fact that the folder isn’t even open, bless his sweet blond head.

The questions seem cold, seem callous, and perhaps you’re a little indignant at the universe itself which might be the reason that the blank spaces seem to mock you. Blaine sits on the couch behind you while you hunker down on the floor in front of the coffee table to huff and sigh over the stationery like it’s an exam you didn’t study for.

His feet are on the outside of your hips, and his hands knead your shoulders, rub your back, nails scrape lightly. All in an effort to soothe you. Methodically, he untangles your hair and then runs his hands through it, peering- occasionally -over your shoulder.

He gets lost in the motions, inadvertently soothing himself until his eyelids start drooping. He isn’t sure how much time has passed by but the sky is dark outside, and noise from traffic has died down.

“Am I done?” you ask bitterly, and all but throw the papers at him over your shoulder.

He just barely manages to catch them, and rewards you with a tiny tug on your hair that’s part scolding,  part genuine irritation.

He flips through the pages, combing each and every space, every box, every word you’ve written. He lays it all on the couch cushion next to him, “Done. Penmanship could use some work,” he teases, and you sigh from your spot on the floor.

You tilt your head back, “My penmanship is immaculate, thank you very much.”

He smiles, and gets his hands under your arms. “C’mon. Come here.” He more or less pulls you into his lap, you settle against his chest, and his arms twine around your front.

For a long time it’s just that. Easy breathing, and nuzzling faces, caressing palms, lazy kisses. For a long time. But like all things concerning Blaine…it escalates


	11. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four days isn't a long time for him to go without. But four days without you has been an eternity. And he knows now, without a doubt. But he just can't seem to get the words out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much just smut.

It’s a beat, it’s a lapse, a slip-up- perfectly tactical -as he grabs the softness of your thigh and readjusts you to a more comfortable position, revealing to you as briefly as a blink the hardness pressing against the confines of his boxers.

He knows full well what he’s done, if the smirk he kisses you through is any indication. Your hands cup his face, legs straddling him, and he grips your waist with hard hands and mean fingers that will most definitely leave bruises. You moan into his mouth as a warmth creeps through you and makes your blood hum, and he grinds your hips down onto him.

He loves to tease, you know that, even so…you break away from his mouth and kiss around his jaw, get underneath and leave little pecks, and tongue-y kisses and his hands slide down and squeeze your ass in response.

He’s good at keeping quiet which is something that infuriates you.

Blaine bucks his hips up into yours and you gasp hotly, arching your body into him. He bites at your collar-bone, not at all nice about it. There’s going to be a mark there. He grabs your hands, places them on his shoulders and before you can ask what he’s doing, he stands from the couch.

Your legs wind around him like instinct, and he’s got his hands under your thighs with bruising strength. You kiss him again, even as he starts walking to the bedroom, and his brow furrows with the effort. The effort of not slamming you against a wall and fucking you in the hallway.

Your fingers tunnel through his short hair, nails scrape lightly, and he bites your lip like a warning. Your chest is heaving, and your thighs tremble as is if in foreshadowing. Blaine feels it, and _God_ does he love it.

The lights are off in your bedroom, the blinds are open, letting moonlight spill in and Blaine is entranced with the way that shadows and pale light play on your features. He lowers you onto the bed, your legs still wrapped around him, and he kisses you rough and slow as his hand dives underneath your too-big sweater and teases the waistline of your underwear.

He’s at your neck, breathing humid, laving at your weak spot and you whine.

“Blaine, _please._ ”

It’s music to his ears. He snaps your lacy underwear against your hip and leans away, wrapping a hand under the crook of one of your knees and pries your leg off his waist. Your own hands snatch at the hem of his t-shirt and start to tug it up.

Over his head it goes, tossed away like a nuisance, and he helps you out of your own nuisance. Thumbs rolling your hardened peaks, tongue licking a stripe up your neck, over all the bite marks and bruises. Fingers twisting in the sheets, teeth biting a lip to stem the noises, hips rolling for friction, eyes closed, head tossed back.

Blaine welcomes a breast into his mouth eagerly, tongue circling and flicking, teeth scraping. He hums at the noises that you try to hide, smug. He pinches your other nipple between his fingers, a sharp contrast to the sweet way he’s loving the one in his mouth.

A fire burns low in your stomach, instead of burning up, it burns lower, trickling down you like molten lava, but the progress is slow.

Your cheeks are aflame with want. “Blaine.. _c’mon_.” you practically whine at his teasing.

His lips pucker around the hardened peak in his mouth and he releases it with a tiny nip, “Impatient tonight,” he mocks, eyebrows high.

Regardless of how slow he wants to take this, he humors you a little, sliding his hand into your panties, delving into the heat between your legs. You almost sob in relief as his fingers part your lips, run and down the wetness gathered there because he’s got you wound so tight, but simultaneously unraveled so pathetically.

A single finger inches in…tortuously slow, and he’s leaned over you, supporting his weight on his forearm above your head. He watches you, watches the breath struggle out of you, watches the flush on your cheeks spread. He covets the shyness of you when all attention is trained on you, like now. You won’t meet his eyes, you fight the smallest of sounds.

Another digit, a slow withdrawal, a lethargic re-entry, and your jaw loosening.

“You’re gorgeous like this.” It slips out of him, completely unbidden, but so honest. And it shocks you into looking at him, which is a dire mistake on your part. His eyes gleam in the darkness, “All soft, and warm, but-” another finger joins the two inside you and you gasp weakly, “Just an inch away from…” His fingers curl and you cry out as your walls shudder and collapse.

Your chest arches, breath caught in your ribcage like a fugitive, and your thighs tremble like water on the skin of a drum. His fingers keep a leisurely pace, drawing from your weeping core aftershocks and little secrets.

His mouth covers your own and he swallows down all the things you can’t put into words, things he doubts he’s worthy of hearing. Instead, he’ll accept the flavor, and chase it and he’ll memorize it. And he’ll return your submission of secrets with careful attention, and grateful hands.

You whimper into his mouth, oversensitive, but his fingers don’t stop, and he doesn’t stop kissing you. You cup his face, thumbs in front of his ears and try to kiss back with the same pace and ease, but-

His fingers curl in you again, and you break away with a pitiful moan, climbing that high again but much faster, much stronger. Your muscles tighten, you pant for air repeating his name like a prayer. Right on the edge, just a second away-

Blaine chuckles and removes his fingers from you, much to your devastation. The sound that tumbles out of your mouth is tight with frustration, disappointment, helplessness. Blaine kisses your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth,

“Oh, baby…” he coos, lips wide in a smile as his hand caresses your hip bone.

His fingers catch, and he begins dragging your panties down your legs, his body slithering down your own. Your breathing is still shaky, muscles confused as you try to decide to fight for the feeling or let it slowly fade until he touches you again.

He flings the lace away, peeks at you as he sheds his boxers, and wonders what’s going through your mind. His hands run up the line of your body. Calves, knees, thighs, as he approaches and he sees your chest rise sharply.

He has a little mean streak. Heels of his palms run from the inside out over your hips, he licks at the rise of your hip, and you grab a fistful of your own hair as he sucks at the seam of your thigh. He crawls up your body, kissing and licking as he sees fit. His hands are like afterthoughts, like pauses in conversation where you listen hard, or the interlude between lightning and thunder where you hold your breath and watch with wide eyes.

Your hands snatch at him when he’s close enough, so frantic and needy, and he has no complaints. Legs around his waist, thighs tight like rope, you’re ready to welcome him. He waits, bowed over you, his striking blues locked on your face. He’s lined up, but immobile, his body calm but his mind- his mind runs frantically.

“Blaine!” you shamelessly whine, clenching your thighs, digging your heels into his buttocks, but he hardly moves. The head of his cock is nestled in your folds, and it’s the worst tease your body’s ever had to endure.

He blinks, something in his gaze dropping as his eyes run over your face, and he cradles your cheek in his palm. His heart stutters when you nuzzle into his palm, kiss his wrist, and whisper ‘please’ brokenly. He shifts, just a few degrees, pushes in like he’s got nowhere to go.

Your eyes slide shut, and you rock your hips trying to get him in faster, but a firm hand on your hip holds you still against the bed. The frustrated sob that bubbles out from your chest is in no way exaggerated, and he’s immediately sorry.

“Oh- hey, hey. Baby-” he coos and pries your lip away from your teeth with his thumb which you’re biting sharply to keep quiet. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” When you meet his eyes, he’s not surprised by the amount of indignation he’s treated with, and he leans down to kiss the frown off your lips.

“I want you to do something for me,” he murmurs against your mouth, and you groan.

“Anything!” you promise wantonly, a hand on the back of his neck to keep him close.

“I want you to look at me, baby. Keep your eyes on me. Can you do that?”

You’re already nodding, whimpering _yes_ and _please_ and _I promise_ like your life depends on it.

Blaine finds your hands with his own, and interlocks your fingers. Your hands go up beside your head, pressed into the mattress under his weight, and finally, _finally_ he begins earnestly pushing himself inside you.

Your breath gets trapped in the length of your throat as he slowly fills you, stretching you deliciously. Further and further he sinks into you and you drown in the feeling, the sensation. He’s pulsing and hot, and perfect, and when he’s fully sheathed you sigh.

Your eyes are locked, pinned on one another, and Blaine remains for a moment, bottomed out in you. He grinds his hips into yours, eliciting a hitch in your breath, and then he does what he does best: reduces you to a puddle.

“You are perfect,” he says seriously. He pulls out just a few inches, creeps back in, and your mouth drops open, “Beautiful, irresistible, sweet. Intoxicating,” Blaine lowers himself to twist his tongue around your own, a short withdrawal from you, a sharp thrust.

“And you’re all mine.” He growls when your head tips back with a moan, your eyes steadfastly locked.

He takes up a steady rhythm, rocking into you smoothly, fluid from point a to point b. A simple feedback loop of give and take, long strokes like painting, your body flushing pink. A hymn: the headboard hitting the wall, mattress springs squeaking just loud enough to be heard over the smack of flesh, and lecherous moans.

Sweat, pearling on your brow. Sweat, sliding down his jaw, beading on his chest. Fingers curling tight, your nails biting into the backs of his hands. Heavy gazes, walls crumbling bit by bit, thrust by thrust until you’re open and he _sees you_.

And then he drops the angle and drives it home, and your heels hook behind his thighs. He can feel you- see you fraying at the edges, and he’s not much better off. He slides his grip on your hands up, stretching you long, and the pleasure bleeds, it lengthens, and it climbs but it doesn’t peak. You tremble, ready for the fall, but you don’t go.

Blaine’s head drops, forehead landing on your own. His gaze burns, burns through you like you’re made of paper. You can do nothing but gasp his name into his mouth, and plead with your eyes.

He gives you mercy, because he’s merciful. For you.

It’s like every fiber of your being exploding in a million different colors, it’s like the world goes dark and boils down to this. The rush of blood in your veins, the bloom of warmth from his release, the trembling, weak whimpers and gasps you share. Every muscle wired and taut, ears muddled as if underwater. Sweat shining and running in rivulets in the pale moonlight over curves and sharp corners, glinting like jewels on his body.

He sinks, sags against you with all of his weight, and your hands are free and his mouth is on your neck kissing lazily. Words are muttered into your flesh, too soft and garbled to be made out, and you drag shaky fingers through his damp hair.

Palms run down your hips, thumbs rub soothingly. He’s sated, pliant, docile even. He softens inside you, rubs his nose along the curve of your throat, and he lifts his weight off you on quivering arms.

He lands beside you like a ton of bricks, his gaze heavy-lidded. He finds himself speechless. There is no snark, no wit for what just happened. You roll on your side, a happy smile on your lips, and he returns it, cups your face in his palm.

What you don’t know is that he’s on borrowed time. And he’s selfish, he wants to say it, wants to tell you. But more than he is selfish, he’s a coward. So, he says nothing in the face of fear, despite what he knows is true.

He saw it in your eyes. He hopes you didn’t see it in his own.

“Are you going to stay?” you ask him shyly, laying your hand over his own. You kiss his wrist and his gaze softens even more.

Again, no wit. Just awed honesty. “Yeah, I am. You can’t get rid of me now, Y/N.”

You chuckle, and worm your way over to him, nuzzling into his side. His arm goes around you, secure and comforting, you trace nonsense patterns on his chest.

“Thank God.” You murmur, your eyelids heavy, and Blaine snorts.

But he has no comeback, because he meant what he said. And he couldn’t be more sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> Fudge me, I can't take this show. For real, it's easily becoming one of my favorite shows I've ever watched. It's just...it's *sighs*. If you haven't watched it, get on it. You won't regret it. By the way, just wanna say: love you guys. You're all awesome, like, if I could ship a box of donuts to you all, I would. Ok, I'm gonna go now. Bye.


End file.
